Paul Howard

Business Administrator - Temporary Assignment Executive Performance Partners

Can you take us to the beginning of your career? How did you get your start?

I graduated from university with an Engineering degree, not sure what I wanted to do with my career. I ended up finding a role with Vodafone at their call centre in Hobart. As time progressed, I not only would answer the phones but take on little side projects to further my skill set. The opportunity to transfer to the Vodafone office in Brisbane came up, and I took it. Brisbane’s warmer, bigger and I always wanted to come up here. Vodafone in Brisbane was another step in the right direction. Still a bit of customer service, but far more freedom to implement change. I had the opportunity to move into a new company within the Vodafone umbrella, and this would be a role where I’d learn a whole new software system from scratch. It gave me the ability to present improvements and suggestions on how to make the system more effective. It was a fixed contract role, so after about five months of improving this software system and finishing the project, I got in touch with Talentpath to see what other opportunities were out there for me.

I ended up starting in a temporary position with Wilson Security in an Accounts Payable role. At the same time, Wilson Security advertised for an administrative and analytics role in their patrols business. I took the opportunity to apply and landed the role full-time. I was there for about a year before the role position description changed based on the needs of the business. It would have replaced the analytical work with mostly compliance-based duties, which I knew I wouldn’t enjoy and take me further away from the career path I was wanting. So, I finished up and got in touch with Talentpath to find my next adventure, which brings me to my current role at Executive Performance Partners as a Business Administrator. I am involved with reporting, analytics, process improvement, and more.

Have there been any challenges or hurdles would you say to get you where you are now?

Something I’ve had to overcome is the ability to demonstrate that I have the skills and that I’ve delivered successes without having the formal titles to back it up. For example, whilst at Vodafone my formal title was Customer Care Agent, but I was heavily involved in building improvement solutions that would be more alike to the responsibilities of a higher-level role. For me, the solution to this has been temporary assignments.

What skills do you think have served you well in your career path?

My time at Executive Performance Partners has helped me to describe my areas of strength and two of these are commercial acumen and evaluation. I can see multiple steps ahead at what the overall benefit of something will be before it is implemented, as well as the layers beneath the surface of a problem - where the root causes and key takeaways are usually found.

Any piece of career advice you’d like to share?

I really enjoy temporary assignments and think it’s a beneficial way for both you as an employee and the employer to road-test what it will be like working together. Often you won’t know how a full-time role is really going to be until you start, so temporary assignments allow you that breathing room to experience something you’re interested in before committing long-term.