As someone with dyslexia, I was lucky to be diagnosed early in my life. However as much as this helped me understand my difficulties in literacy, it didn’t help alleviate the fear of my name being called to read aloud to the class. In truth, I still struggle to read aloud today but at no point has that hindered my career with Enterprise.
For as long as I can remember reading and writing have always been challenging and I’ve felt far more comfortable working with numbers and delivering presentations. It is human nature for people to work to overcome challenges. Fortunately for me, I believe the challenge of being dyslexic has helped me develop many traits needed for working at Enterprise. It has made me more resilient and helped instil a strong work ethic while also improving my communication skills. I have always avoided reading aloud, if possible, unsurprisingly I’d always rather speak freely when presenting than read from a prewritten script. Funnily enough, I’ve progressed in my career to become a Talent Acquisition Specialist and Resilience, Work Ethic and Communication are now 3 of the competencies I look to identify in candidates that are applying to Enterprise!.
When I started working for Enterprise as a Management Trainee, I quickly realised that this was an environment where I could succeed. The hands-on training within the role suited me, I was able to get stuck in and take on new responsibilities within the business from almost day one. The internal assessments I needed to complete in order to progress were predominantly evidence-based from projects I had implemented whilst working through my training folder. There was due to be one written assessment however when it became apparent that undertaking this would not be the best way to assess if I had the knowledge required to progress my Area Manager took an hour out of her day to sit down with me and conduct the assessment in the form of an interview. Reflecting on this I feel very fortunate to be working at a business where they support their employee’s development and from my experience are happy to be flexible in their approach to help each individual achieve their potential.
When I progressed to a management role naturally my responsibilities increased, and my duties evolved. There was an element of report writing but most of my time and energy was spent understanding the needs of my team and my customers. My ability to communicate clearly and find solutions were far more valuable than being able to read long passages or spell flawlessly. The things I read the most while working in the branch were the feedback comments that we received from our customers and the monthly financial statements. I really enjoyed evaluating our performance through the feedback and figures, allowing us to identify our successes and opportunities as a team before planning on how to impact these in the month ahead.
I think everyone has something that they hold close to them, something that motivates them. For me, I think being dyslexic has been that. The work ethic that it has instilled in me, and my need to adapt and find solutions when learning in the past have set me up for a career at Enterprise. Now in my role as a Talent Acquisition Specialist, the only constraint of being dyslexic is the place names I find challenging to read. So, if I interview you in the future and I am unable to read the name of your town or university correctly, I apologise in advance!
If you are looking to join an inclusive and forward-thinking company why not see what roles and vacancies are available? I hope to speak to you soon!
