{"id":365,"date":"2020-10-19T10:24:48","date_gmt":"2020-10-19T09:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/?p=365"},"modified":"2020-10-23T10:47:46","modified_gmt":"2020-10-23T09:47:46","slug":"pcso-to-pca-my-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/2020\/10\/pcso-to-pca-my-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"PCSO to PCA: My journey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-primary-background-color has-background\">by Jameet Singh, junior consultant<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I joined Avon and Somerset Constabulary on an apprenticeship\nprogramme within the Criminal Justice Department immediately after finishing my\nGCSEs. That was the start of my thirteen-year career, taking me on a diverse\ncareer path from police community support officer to Major Crime Investigation\nTeam helping investigate homicides. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"265\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/jim-jam-265x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-371\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/jim-jam-265x300.jpg 265w, https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/jim-jam.jpg 548w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 265px) 100vw, 265px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>During my career in the police force I had many secondments. I enjoyed being an executive assistant for the assistant chief constable in Gloucestershire Police, and helping set up the Outreach Team with the aim of making Avon and Somerset a more diverse organisation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>From working on a few high-profile homicides, and alongside high-ranking officers in the Chief Officer Group (COG), I had a wide-ranging career, but felt the time was right to take on something different. My cousin is a project manager in London and has worked with some huge companies like HP and Coral, and I was always interested in her project stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I originally applied for an office manager post within\ni3Works, but after being interviewed somehow ended up agreeing to join the\nProject Controls Academy, despite having no previous experience in the project\nworld. I always thought you needed project qualifications to work in project\nmanagement, so was surprised to have been accepted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I remember taking a file with me into my interview and\nshowing all the commendations I had received in the police. I think that\u2019s why\nI stood out in the interview. i3Works, being the supportive company they are, reassured\nme about my fears of having no previous project management experience, and here\nI am completing my first year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"270\" src=\"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/BeMoreBen_GroupImage-300x270.jpg\" alt=\"Image of i3Works team with Bake for Ben\" class=\"wp-image-238\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/BeMoreBen_GroupImage-300x270.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/BeMoreBen_GroupImage-768x692.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/BeMoreBen_GroupImage.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption>Jameet Singh, Sarah Pritchard (Be More Ben), Natalie Talbot, James Harris, and Chris Barnett with the Bake for Ben packs  <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>My first placement was within the bid management team, helping\nwith bid responses and supporting the implementation of a bid library. This took\nup two-days a week, with the other three being Project Controls Academy days.\nThis is where I learnt about project controls, working on dummy projects and\ncreating my own schedules. Within this timeframe I completed my Prince2\nFoundation and took a part in the APM Challenge in a Cost role, where we worked\nwith a great charity and delivered all the outputs outlined in the business\ncase. This reminded me of my apprenticeship days, as I was learning like being at\nschool, but being paid at the same time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I landed my first client role for within the Ministry of Defence in a project support capacity. This was followed by my first consultant role in February 2020 as a lead planner\/scheduler. I am still in this role and have received great feedback from the client. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I definitely would encourage people to join Project Controls Academy. I thought I could never join as I never had experience, but this has proven me wrong and given me a chance to work on some great projects. The year has flown by and I can\u2019t wait to complete another one!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-light-gray-background-color has-background\">Our new PCA recruits joined us this week. Keep an eye on our news as we update you on their progress throughout the year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Jameet Singh, junior consultant I joined Avon and Somerset Constabulary on an apprenticeship programme within the Criminal Justice Department immediately after finishing my GCSEs. That was the start of my thirteen-year career, taking me on a diverse career path from police community support officer to Major Crime Investigation Team helping investigate homicides. During my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":373,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions\/373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}