A guide to getting your first Transport Planning job!

Overview

Graduates from around the world will be leaving university and doing what they can to get the best role and the first foot in the door in what could be a fantastic career. There are lots of things that Grads can do and lots of things they should not do in order to have the best chance of success.

The biggest thing they should not do is to try and secure a role via a Recruitment Consultant. So that would be me or any of the other transport planning recruitment circle (there are about ten of us). Simply, you have to put yourself in the best light with your future employer and coming with a recruiter’s invoice and price-tag isn’t the best idea. All things being equal, your competition (other grads) who do the following and do it directly, will get the offer.

So what do you do, when do you do it, who do you do it with and how?

Come on in.

Curriculum Vitae

People actually pay money for someone to write them a good CV. I think those people that do do that probably don’t have a very good back story and need something to make up for it. Graduates certainly don’t need to, and nor should anyone obsess over it.

A graduate CV should be two pages long. It should be to the point, professional and yet personal. You cannot necessarily rely on experience to get your next role, so think what you can depend on.

Firstly understand your audience. How you write a CV to a private sector consultancy might be slightly different to that of a government organisation, transport operator or financial institution. An example would be focussing around your consultative nature (if you have one) or maybe you are more analytical – think about it.

A CV should either have a cover letter (depending on who you are approaching this may be a pre-requisite) or more simply a ‘profile’ section which will detail in a paragraph who you are, what you have achieved to date (MSc in Transport Planning for example) and what you would like to achieve in this next and first step into your transport planning career. It will speak both professionally and personally to your audience, and will not be overly familiar.

The structure of a CV should be as follows:

Name, Contact Details, LinkedIn handle, any websites you have links to your work examples or presentations (not many will have this, but those that do will want to shout about it – normally PhDs)

Profile Section as per above.

Qualifications – GCSE grades and above. If MSc dissertation has been written or a thesis (Doctorate) then some detail around the focus of that document. If PhD – more focus should be applied. It is a very important part of your life to date, don’t be afraid to talk about it.

Work Experience – you may have taken a year out in industry (which would be amazing) or have some experience which will help you demonstrate a work ethic. If you worked in MacDonalds when you were 16 then really people are not too bothered about that. This CV is to help you sell yourself. Always remember that.

Project experience (if you have any that is pertinent to the roles you are applying for)

Skills – skills not detailed above can you put in here. Normally they will be technical and IT based software skills but there could be other areas as well that will be important.

Interests – Quite important at this stage of your career, and don’t dismiss it.

References – two good reference details or simply ‘Can be provided upon request.’

It is that simple, and really this format won’t change even if you had 30 years’ experience.

Self-Promotion

I am a big user of LinkedIn. Make sure you have begun building your network on this platform. It is used across the industry and will be an excellent tool for you in trying to seek out the people you need to identify in the application process (or certainly companies, at least – but I am going to cover much of that for you later on). People and companies may well search for you through other Social Media channels to make sure there is no murky past. Be aware of that. Vitriol on twitter about something might be frowned upon. Be mindful of it.

The Milk-Round

Most universities will have open days for employers to go and speak to soon-to-be-graduates which will allow them to say a bit about who they are and vice-versa. If your options that day are to go and watch the cricket at Headingly or to go to the open day event, go to the open day event. It is important. I didn’t do this and now I’m in Recruitment. You do not want that to happen.

I am not telling you how you should present yourself here. You can work that out.

Not everyone will have this milk-round opportunity and most will need to use their CV, Cover Note and Personality to apply for roles directly with organisations…

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Searching for Graduate roles:

These will be all over the internet. LinkedIn, CV Library, Jobsite and others will allow you to create a Job Search which you can save and create what is known as a watchdog. This means that whenever a Graduate role goes live then you will receive an email directly into your inbox. This is a hugely important step and you should get these set up well before you intend to start applying. Just in case. Follow the instructions – you are a transport planner or modeller, you can do this.

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Application process:

A lot of companies will have direct graduate recruitment campaigns running from early summer through to Autumn and perhaps all year round. It is important you are registering on all of these, and proceeding through the Talent Acquisition team and the portal on the websites. Some companies will have dedicated Graduate Talent Acquisition teams or managers. You want to be on their side. Hopefully you will get feedback whether it is negative or positive, and make sure you are keeping track of this.

A lot of companies will not have these portals, processes or teams. What then…?

The onus will be down to you to work out how you approach those companies. You have literally nothing to lose by reaching our directly to HR Managers and Directors (on the one hand) or to the Director of Transport Planning in the locations in which you wish to work. Again, LinkedIn will be handy here, but Google and company websites are transparent on this now. It will not be hard to reach them via email and it will be even easier to work out what their email address is.

Once you have located them, be they HR, TA or Directors of industry, then your approach is simple and to the point. They will be busy and will appreciate a well-worded email introducing yourself and with your CV and Profile Letter attached. They do not need reams of text. Be mindful of this, be professional and polite and do not apologise for emailing them. That is a very silly thing to do:

Dear Mrs x,

I am sorry for the email intrusion…..

NO!!!!! Just no.

Your email and cover letter and CV should have absolutely zero grammatical and spelling errors. You are against competition. Do not provide any easy reasons for your CV to be bottom of the pile.

Also – people ask if a picture should be on a CV. There is no right or wrong answer to this, but erring on the side of caution – leave it off.

Your email should be straight forward and inviting them to consider your self-introduction. What you are wanting out of this is simply a connection and a way forward – an email back saying ‘yes, proceed this way or speak to this person or, the very best, when are you free for a call?’ Jackpot.

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Who’s Who in the UK Transport Planning World?

You could spend months researching this and by no means is this a comprehensive list. But it is an extremely good start. You should be aware of all these companies and you should be approaching all those companies that have a presence in the city or town in which you wish to live. This is in no particular order and certainly not in size or reputation. That would be a different document altogether!

Aecom?????????????????Steer Group??????????????????????Aimsun??????????????????????????????Waterman Group

WSP?????????????????????PA Consulting????????????????????Bentley Systems??????????????Tetra Tech

Systra??????????????????Mott MacDonald?????????????Hydrock?????????????????????????????Mode Transport Planning City Science

SLR Consulting???Arup???????????????????????????????????Buro Happold???????????????????Arcadis

Jacobs?????????????????PTV Group????????????????????????Sweco?????????????????????????????????SNC Lavelin

Amey ?????????????????KPMG????????????????????????????????PwC???????????????????????????????????Deloitte

EY?????????????????????????Grant Thornton????????????????Iceni Projects????????????????????Infrata

GHD?????????????????????NRP????????????????????????????????????Oxera?????????????????????????????????Pell Frischmann

Stantec???????????????Ramboll?????????????????????????????Project Centre??????????????????Royal Haskoning

i-Transport?????????Axis Ped?????????????????????????????JNP?????????????????????????????????????Caneparo

ITP???????????????????????Phil Jones Associates??????Paul Basham?????????????????????Ricardo

Evoke???????????????????Meinhardt Group????????????Connected Places Catapult

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All Airport Operators, Train Operating Companies, Local Authorities, Department for Transport, STBs, Banks, Transport for London, Network Rail.

There are many, many more developers and town planning practices who I have not put on this list, but this is a good start.

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This document intends to be a bit of an idiot-proof overview of the application process. It doesn’t touch upon things like The Interview Process, Competency Based Interviewing, Chasing for Feedback, How to create a perfect LinkedIn profile, Online vs Face2Face interviews. This is a foot-in-the-door document. The rest you will have to figure out!

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/fredewing

Or drop me a line on [email protected]

And, of course, when you ?are looking to make a move at around Senior / Principal Consultant up to CEO grade then you know where to come…

Good luck.

Fred