Head of Client Services
Slenky

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My name is Dami.

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I head up client services at Slenky and we’re based in Wembley Park.

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So Slenky is a social platform that helps young people

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find opportunities based on their passions and interests.

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And these opportunities can be anything from events,

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workshops, internships, apprenticeships and jobs.

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Client services is the business-focused
side of Slenky,

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so it’s working with different

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organisations and their teams, and helping them understand

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what Slenky is, how to use the platform, and continue reaching the audiences

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and young people that are trying to connect

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with the different opportunities they have.

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Some of the skills and strengths that are useful in my job are being organised.

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Another is being comfortable talking to people and introducing yourself.

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Enjoying talking to people.

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Creative thinking, definitely.

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There’s an opportunity to kind of solve problems or come up with new ideas.

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I really did enjoy school, probably not for the reasons that I was supposed to.

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My GCSEs were

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maths,

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English, science, PE, Spanish and further maths.

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One lesson that I definitely remember now not enjoying massively at school,

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but I think is really useful, is definitely English.

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When I started working, I realised that English

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was really useful actually, and that’s mainly because

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of how many emails I send and how much time I spend writing things.

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A-levels were maths, Spanish and PE.

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I did well in two of them; really badly in one.

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When I finished at school I got into university

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at Manchester, I got to study Spanish and Japanese.

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I was so lucky. I lived in Tokyo for a year.

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Another reason I decided to go to Manchester for university

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is because I’m a Manchester United fan

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and I ended up working at Manchester United’s stadium.

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So I worked at Old Trafford as my part time job while studying.

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When I finished my course, I still remember

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being told by my careers advisor that I had two choices of what I could do

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and one was either be a teacher and the other was be a translator.

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And I knew I didn’t want to do either.

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So I came back to my parents’

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place and started working in a bar.

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I learned that I’m really good at talking to people.

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I moved from the bar that I was working in to a restaurant,

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and I actually got my first job from working in that restaurant.

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One of the customers was a owner of a company

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and asked me if I would come and work for him.

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And so I ended up working at a recruitment company, recruitment consultancy,

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for two years and then deciding that I actually really didn’t like it.

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And didn’t want to do it anymore.

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I found a postgraduate-type course online

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and I ended up doing that for a year and that was incredible.

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That was completely transformational for me, actually.

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The course was in social innovation and it was all about helping

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young people gain experience, doing practical work,

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but setting up their own businesses or creating their own projects.

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After finishing the course, I set up my own social enterprise

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and ran that for six months

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and that was great again to get experience.

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But I didn’t want to carry that on either.

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And coincidentally I met someone at an event.

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I went up to them and just asked them about themselves

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because they asked a question and seemed interesting

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and they also ran a business. And they told me what they were working on

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and it was super interesting. And they offered me a chance

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to kind of just get involved on a part time basis early on.

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And so I still worked at the pub and worked

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with them for a little while and I’ve been there six years now.

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And that was Slenky.

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Advice I would give to people is to

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feel okay doing things different to everyone else.

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I really think it’s important

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to try and make time for yourself to actually just think.

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It sounds really simple but just think about what do you actually like?

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What do you care about?

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What are you actually interested in?

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What do you think you’re good at?

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Just understanding what’s unique to you is really important.