From English & Philosophy to a Career in Fintech!
How I Got Here: Sydney Samuels' Career Journey
Welcome to ‘How I Got Here’: a content series brought to you by Vamos Insights. We will be featuring inspiring students and young professionals across a broad range of industries, who will each share their career journey and provide insightful advice to help you navigate the big wide world of work.
Introducing our very first guest, Sydney Samuels!
Before her current role, Sydney started her career at Nomura (a global investment bank) on the Operations graduate scheme for two years before she joined Y TREE, a fintech startup, where she currently works. She is also an entrepreneur as the founder of Loop Not Luck, a diverse talent recruitment platform that uses AI to “help people from underrepresented communities find out about opportunities they might never have known about if they weren’t in the loop.” Learn more about her career journey in our interview below:
Why did you choose your degree subject? Were the reasons linked to your career aspirations at the time?
“I didn’t pick my degree with a particular career in mind. If I’d done something like medicine, it would have been quite obvious what my potential career path could be. My motto when it comes to education and careers is to do something that opens as many doors as possible. So I chose to do something that will give me the transferable skills that are applicable to almost any role.
I found that doing a degree I actually enjoyed (rather than one that my parents/society had said was best) actually helped me to enjoy University and get a lot out of my course.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life but I’ve always had an entrepreneurial side to me. I thought whilst I’m working out what I want to do with my career… I kinda want to make some money! So I decided to pursue a career in financial services.”
Since you kept an open mind about your career options, how did you figure out what area within financial services was right for you?
“I learn better by doing. Once I got into work, I was able to see what I liked and didn’t like about the role and I based my career decisions on what I enjoyed and was good at in real life. Sometimes the idea of what you want to do is a lot more attractive than what it’s like in reality.
When I worked within corporate infrastructure as part of the trade support team, this wasn’t really a client facing role. Unlike trading or sales, which seems really attractive and fast-paced, and what a lot of people would prefer to do over the operational side of things. Even though I see myself as a people person, when I saw the kind of hours that investment bankers and traders do and the pressure that they’re under in real life, I realized that it actually wasn’t that appealing to me.
As nice as the image that I had of myself when I was older, to be walking to work in a pencil skirt and heels and feeling like I was the business, in reality I need some balance in my life. I’ve managed to find a role that provides this and through learning by doing I’ve been able to work out what I’m good at and what I actually want to do.”
Would you say that an internal-facing corporate role can still be suitable for those who see themselves as a people-person, then?
“Yeah, you can be a people-person without having to work in a client-facing role, like in HR where you get to talk to people from different parts of the company, build relationships with them, and apply behavioral psychological theory.
And I think that because I’ve got my own thing on the side, with Loop Not Luck, I get a lot of value out of that too. I don’t get everything I want out of just one role. I think it’s very rare to find a job that ticks every single one of your boxes, and that you don’t find frustrating at some point. If you can find it, that’s an absolute gem! But I think it’s probably one in a billion. I think it’s really important to have other passions and interests and do things that fulfil you in other ways. So I don’t look to get everything out of one role.”
That’s relieving to hear, because it does feel like there’s a lot of pressure on students to find their dream job immediately and find all their fulfilment in the workplace. Would you say that thinking of your career as a journey can take some pressure off the job searching process?
“Yeah I think that’s important, but I also wouldn’t negate the value of trying really hard to get a good entry level role, as where you get your foot in the door does help your career trajectory. When I mentor students, I like to use the metaphor of a pyramid to show the career journey. So in the first 10 years of your career, you’re building your foundation i.e. the pyramid base. If you only focus on developing your expertise in one narrow area, then you’ve only got one building block in your base. But when you do things that provide more building blocks by opening more doors, you broaden your foundation. And with a wider foundation, you can reach a higher point at the top. I like to use this analogy to show the value of an entry level role in building up a strong foundation for your career. I think sometimes students put a lot of pressure on themselves to find their purpose before 30. But I think anyone in their 40s or 50s will tell you that it’s a continuous process.”
What skills do you feel that doing an arts and humanities degree has provided you with that helped you with your career journey?
“English and Philosophy are all about understanding changing perspectives and seeing things from different points of view. I felt like in a world that's constantly adapting and changing, being able to communicate and see things from a different perspective is always going to be a valuable skill. I think that those skills have helped in terms of not seeing things in a very literal way, as you would if it was kind of math -one plus one equals two, there's no debate. But when it comes to philosophy, there's never a definitive answer. Whilst that's very frustrating to study, because it's impossible to write an argument without doubting it, this helps you in the real world, because there's not one solution to any one problem. The ability to sketch out all of those possible solutions feeds into diversity of thought and being able to help companies to become market leaders. So liberal arts skills are definitely applicable to the finance industry, and were previously underestimated but employers are starting to value and actively seek them out now.”
So would you say that when you were applying for roles in finance that it was important to have that self-awareness of your transferable skills and be able to market it to employers at interview? I think it’s one thing for students to have transferable skills, but it’s another thing to be able to actually communicate to employers how these skills align well with the opportunity that they’re applying for.
“I think that it is important to communicate it because at the end of the day, people hire people. If you’ve gotten in the door, it’s because you're qualified. So the interview is about how you connect with the interviewer, and like you said, how you market yourself. So yes, I think it is important to be able to do that. Nomura was actually the only graduate scheme I applied for, which I wouldn't recommend to anyone else -- very, very, very risky! But it's because I went along to their Women in Investment Banking day and made a really good impression and built connections with some of the key decision makers within Nomura. So when I entered the application process, they already knew my name and I stood out from the thousands of other applicants.
My number one tip for an interview would be to demonstrate your transferable skills rather than just saying it. You do that by practicing. I’m aware that I talk really fast, so for the phone interview, I recorded myself on my voice recorder practicing my answers, and I purposefully slowed down the way that I spoke. Even though it seemed really unnatural to me, when I did test phone interviews with friends and family, they said it sounds 10 times better! So working on my communication helped me to demonstrate it in the interview. Speaking slowly also gives the person at the other end time to write notes and you time to construct an answer on the spot without long pauses in between to gather your thoughts.”
What advice would you give to students who have similar interests as you? Any recommended resources or opportunities?
“[When applying to a job] make sure that you actually like the company, what it stands for and the people that you’re going to be working with, because (especially pre-COVID) you spend more time with these people than you do with your own family. And if you’re doubting whether to apply for a position, and maybe you don’t feel like you’re qualified enough, just apply because the worst that can happen is that you’re in the exact same position that you’re in now.”
For black people who are looking to develop their leadership skills: the Aleto Foundation. I completed their leadership course last summer, and Veronica Martin is one of my mentors – she’s an absolutely phenomenal woman. So apply! I think applications are opening soon for the leadership programme, it’s an invaluable network of young future leaders.
In terms of advice for people who are interested in entrepreneurship, tech, finance or general career guidance and mentorship, just drop me a message on LinkedIn. I’d be more than happy to have a chat.
Plug yourself! Do you have anything you’d like to share? (Projects, social media etc.)
“Obviously, my main plug is going to be Loop Not Luck. We’re going to be live in the app store soon. I’m conducting user testing at the moment and building relationships with companies who are looking to hire more diverse talent. So we tap into different charities and organisations where diverse talent resides but may not know about all the opportunities that are out there for them, and bring them all onto one platform where we use our AI technology to connect them to relevant opportunities. So talented diverse candidates never miss out on a life-changing career opportunity because they don’t know someone who knows someone.”
That sounds great! Thank you so much for sharing your story with us.
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