Skills: Professional

Communication

In order to effectively perform my job as a freelance IT consultant, I have to be able to communicate my ideas and solutions to both technically minded and non-technically minded individuals. This role must be completed both in person, over the phone, and via written communications, such as briefs and e-mails.

In my career as a student and as a consultant, I have performed dozens, if not hundreds, of presentations, in front of as few as a single person and up to hundreds. The ideas I have presented has ranged from simple and concise to complex and intricate; key to my clear presentations is determining if an audience is becoming lost by the work, and adapting on-the-fly to the reactions of the audience.

Problem Solving

During the course of my work I have been confronted by significant challenges; my work as a researcher has taught me how to approach problem solving and where to start looking to find solutions.

When I am presented with a problem I first identify what is causing the problem; wasting time trying to fix the effect is pointless. This requires drilling down the code/issue, until a clear description is found. If the cause of the problem cannot be explained in a single sentence the true cause has not yet been found. Once a root cause is discovered, determining the most appropriate solution requires a mix of my expert knowledge, and research; knowing where to research a solution is the most vital aspect to solution finding.

Team Building and Management

As a consultant and as a researcher I have to work as part of teams, I have found that key to a great team is identifying each team members strongest skill set and allowing them to work from that as a base. While it is often required that a team member will have to work on an area in which they are not an expert, a great team will support team members who need assistance, as a result the whole team will flourish.

Most recently I was part of a team at the Dublin Startup Weekend, this was an intense exercise in which team work was an neccessity. Without no work would be achieved. I feel that testament to the great team we put together, in a single weekend we built a web application that can search public transport routes to enable users to find their way across Dublin City via multiple modes of public transport.