Starting in Security and Resilience in the Risk Consulting team at Deloitte meant that I spent my first six weeks attending "The Security University". Having come from a non-technical background I was worried that I would spend six weeks in a confused haze trying desperately to understand what was going on – luckily it wasn't at all like that!
The University took place at conference venues near the New Street Square office and was attended by the graduates starting work in Security and Resilience, Corporate Security and Penetration Testing - this meant it was a great opportunity to get to know people in the same boat! The Resilience and Corporate Security graduates attended the first four weeks, with Information Security and Penetration Testing attending for six weeks.
The courses were run by colleagues from the Risk Consulting teams and covered a range of topics including; Security Architecture, Introduction to Corporate Security, Information Security, Disaster Planning and Access Management. For two weeks a Wargame ran concurrently with the courses (more on that later!)
The courses were excellent, and aimed at those of us with little technical knowledge; there were also plenty of group activities and lots of opportunities to ask questions – so not at all like my University lectures of the past! Covering such a wide range of topics gave us a good overview of what the other teams within Security and Resilience did and helped us to understand where we fitted into the team as a whole. I came away from the courses feeling like I had a good baseline knowledge which I could put to good use when I started work.
During University time we also took a course in Foundation Level Software Testing, which lasted three days and ended with a multiple choice exam. This was a professional qualification run by ISEB – and required some evening revision – it wasn't easy, but receiving the certificate in the post a few weeks later made the hard work worth it!
For two weeks we were split into three teams to compete in a Wargame. Over the duration of the exercise the teams were given information regarding a simulated business situation and had to use this to complete various tasks culminating in a presentation to several senior managers/partners. This gave us the opportunity to practice many of the skills we would need as Consultants in an interesting and fun way – despite a large dose of friendly rivalry!
I really enjoyed my time in training, it gave me a great opportunity to learn about my new career but also to meet the people I would be working with in the future – one of the course facilitators is now my manager!
To find out more about Risk Consulting training and development please visit our website.
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