Meet graduate Thales employee, Laura Evans who works in the security/commercial team in the UK. Her career has gone from strength to strength as she continues to develop new skills at Thales:

"In my first role as Project Coordinator in HR, I worked on a global project to implement a new HR system. I learnt about project management and what it takes to manage a global project. It was exciting to liaise with directors in lots of different countries too.

I’m currently working on a project to design and develop the marketing and communications for a new innovation lab where Thales can present and demonstrate our products. The lab is based in Basingstoke and I meet the rest of the team there once a week to ensure everyone’s on schedule to deliver the project on time.

Organising three large international workshops as part of the global HR implementation project was one of the greatest challenges I’ve ever faced. I planned and managed the two week workshops – including location and accommodation for all attendees – while also managing the budget and people’s expectations. I was also responsible for scheduling suitable evening activities for the attendees. And although I was a little apprehensive that something would go wrong, fortunately everything ran very smoothly and we had great feedback from those who took part.

The most important thing I have learnt is how to work with people of different ages and backgrounds. Joining such a large company means that you come into contact with a wide variety of people and it’s important to develop skills to work professionally with all of them.

There’s a great group of graduates here at Crawley too. A group of us play squash on a weekly basis, and along with five other graduates, I participated in the Association of Project Management Challenge. It required our team to create and design a project with the theme of ‘collaboration’. The project was a great success and we came 2nd in the final.

I loved this four-day residential training course. It took place at the end of my first placement and it’s open for all graduates in every discipline. Not only is it a fantastic way to meet and network with other graduates from different locations, it’s a chance to test some of the skills you’ve picked up on your first placement. It’s a mixture of classroom-based and practical training - we all tested each other in groups of nine so the atmosphere was competitive but encouraging. Everyone clearly had a great time and I learnt some really valuable skills like negotiation and dealing with conflict."

Thales are on the lookout for more talented women like Laura to join its global team.