Clocking Off with Clouds
From Non-Target School to Big Tech: My Full Career Breakdown (ep12)
06 Apr 2026
Chapter 1: How did the guest's career journey begin?
You're listening to Clocking Off With Clouds, your cozy corner of the internet where we talk careers, personal growth, and real life. Hello guys, and welcome back to another episode of Clocking Off With Clouds. And thank you so much for choosing to spend the next 20 to 30 minutes with me here in the studio and listening to the podcast.
In a previous episode, I asked you guys if you were more clocking off people or clocking in people when you're listening to the podcast. And it looked like most people are actually clocking off people, which is very much in theme with the title of the podcast. So I hope you guys had a great day.
And for those who are clocking in, then I hope you guys are having a great day or about to have a great day. In today's episode, I am breaking down my career journey step by step, basically walking you guys through my CV as if you guys are my interviewers, but in a much chattier, friendlier setting.
Okay, so I got a lot of students and followers who DM me with questions like, how did you get into consulting? How did you get into tech? What did you do to stand out? What was on your CV? How did you break in from a non-target school? All these questions that refer to my experience and my background and people basically just want to see
like the formula that I personally use and what was on my CV that got me to this point in my life. So I thought I'd literally break it down step by step what I did every single step of the way.
So you guys have not a roadmap because my journey is going to be very different from your journey, but an example of what someone's career path can look like in order to break into consulting and break into tech.
But also if you're new to me, if you're new to Clouds, and if you're new to all my accounts and channels, then this is also a great introductory video so you guys understand my career journey. And I think I've never really done something like this before, or if I have, it was a long time ago, so time for a refresher. Okay, so let's start from the beginning.
I studied business at Queen Mary University, And I always knew I wanted to enter the corporate world, but I had no idea what that looked like. I feel like in the beginning, I actually thought a lot about marketing. And I think as a young woman, sometimes we see movies like Devil Wears Prada and we get really excited by magazines and fashion and we think, oh, marketing sounds really, really fun.
Obviously back then, Emily in Paris wasn't a thing, but that's also an example of how the marketing industry very much gets romanticized for young women. So I actually had a little bit of a... interest or inkling in marketing. But I also knew that it wasn't very, very well paid. And back then, I had no idea what I wanted to do. So I just thought, I'm going to explore.
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Chapter 2: What strategies did the guest use to build their CV?
I had no idea what investment banking was, asset management, all these large finance terms I was completely unfamiliar with, which is super funny. Now looking back, I'm like, wow. But
it's the truth like back then I just had no idea no one had taught me so as I was reading through these job descriptions I was like HR was the one that sounded the most familiar and the most achievable for me as well and back then so that's the one I applied for it was within operations I'd be able to do a bit of experience in HR but also like learning and development recruitment and back then it sounded really really interesting and for me the most important thing was getting banking experience or quote-unquote experience at a bank on my CV because that would be leverage and I understood that so
I applied some actually very rigorous interview processes and this was pre COVID. Everything's pre COVID. So everything was in person. And actually for one of the interviews, I ended up going to the wrong location. So I was about half an hour late.
And I remember so clearly when I was at the wrong location and I realized I was at the wrong location, I looked at my phone and I was like, shit, I'm going to be at least 30 minutes late if I try to go to the right place right now. should I just go home? And I was genuinely so close to just going home and being like, I give up because at this point, I'm not gonna get it anyway.
Who's gonna take someone who was 30 minutes late? Somehow, I decided last minute, I'm gonna stick through, I'm gonna go and do my interview And thank God I did that because that single decision ended up changing the entire trajectory of my life. I must have impressed the employers. I must have impressed the HR representative I talked to. And I got the offer. I was super, super happy.
I can break down exactly what I did in the interviews. I can break down like my interview experience, my interview tactics, all the things that I've learned throughout the different interviews that I've done. But long story short, I got the offer specifically in graduate recruitment and also learning and development.
And I was doing that two days a week throughout the entirety of my second year of university. The other three days a week, obviously I'll be going to lectures, fitting in all my modules, you know, because usually modules aren't only in three days a week. but I had to pick my modules strategically and purposely just so I could work at the bank.
So there were actually modules that I wanted to do that I had to sacrifice because those modules were not allowed me to like didn't fit my schedule of just three days a week. So I had to pick very strategically. And this is an example of sometimes you have to make trade-offs. and you have to pick the thing that is gonna be the most valuable for you in the future.
And I knew that at this point in time, I wanted to focus on work experience. Yes, these modules might be very interesting, but I'm happy maybe not doing all the modules I wanna do if it means I can free up two days of my schedule. Second year for me was insane. I think to this day, it might've been the busiest year of my life. Actually, I don't know.
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Chapter 3: How did attending London Business School influence the guest's career?
And that was honestly a job in itself. So I was also doing that in second year. I was the events manager and putting together the events and the social media and everything else. And I was also the committee member of a dance society that we had in campus. So we had
queen mary dance company i was the treasurer for dance company back then so those are also things i picked up along the way in order to put onto my cv those are all things i was doing in my second year of university so i had these four big things in my life very grateful for this year but at the same time this was a very very taxing year on me because as you can imagine i was doing so many things at once and i didn't want to do any of these things half-assed so i wanted to make a good impression at work
but I also wanted to get good grades and strive for first degree honors. So I was doing everything at full capacity and it was so tiring, so, so tiring that at the end of the year, after my exams, I went back to Portugal because, you know, summer holidays. So I went back to Portugal and I remember just crying in my mom's arms. I think my dad said something that triggered me.
He inferred something along the lines of like, you're fine, you're okay, like you got time. And that was a trigger for me. So I just cried and cried and cried. And then I feel like that's when it really clocked in my mind of like, oh my God, I've been doing a lot. I've been doing a lot. And I was just crying for a good hour in my mom's arms.
As taxing and as emotionally draining as that year was, I'm actually very grateful for that year.
and that's a concept and an overall principle that i actually maybe it's a little bit toxic but something i onboard onto my life is sometimes you just have to have a struggle year or a few struggle years it could be five years it could be one year as the second year was for me sometimes that struggle year enables all these doors to be opened which previously would not be possible so that second year as emotionally draining as it was by the end and as much as i was crying
was the thing that I'm most grateful for to this day because it opened up the possibility of me getting into London Business School. If it wasn't for that year, I would not have gotten my London Business School offer. By the end of second year, I really knew that maybe like consulting is something I'm a little bit interested in.
As I was working through the bank and I was as I was getting experience, I knew that I wanted to be in the front office. I wanted to be those kids that I would see like working in investment banking, but I also knew I didn't want to do investment banking. So I looked into other careers that were client facing careers, but not banking, not finance related.
And I stumbled upon consulting, but I also knew that it was very, very competitive and I was in no shape or form prepared to apply for consulting companies. So I decided to apply for masters also to buy myself a little bit of time to understand exactly what I wanted to do. And I applied for London Business School in the summer between my second year and my third year. And I remember this so well.
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Chapter 4: What pivotal moments shaped the guest's professional path?
Students who got into top universities, students who never really struggled with getting good grades. And now suddenly all you hear is rejections, rejections, rejections. It feels so demotivating.
back then I remember just feeling like my world was ending honestly it sounds so dramatic but it was very very very stressful going through consulting applications and one of the career leads gave us this presentation and she described the application journey as a very much like high
which you feel in the beginning, which is like September, October time when you start sending out your interviews, you're reading these job descriptions, you're like looking at the salaries on Glassdoor and you're like, oh, that's going to be my life. I cannot wait to put my new corporate clothes on, click a clock into the office. I can't wait to make the big bucks.
You're feeling motivated, right? You're sending out your CV, which is a good CV because you're a good student and you're in a good university. So you're feeling super high on life. And then you start getting your rejections and it crashes down. And then it's like, oh, oh wait, oh wait, it's actually kind of hard. It's not just going to be handed to me. And then that's when your mood crashes down.
But I remember seeing this graph. It just has like these sad faces as like reality hits. And this is probably around, I'll say maybe November, December time when you start getting those rejection emails. And then it goes up a little bit more while you still apply. Then it goes down and then you have to ride the wave as the mood goes down.
and then give it enough time, and you'll soon hear back the offer, and then your mood goes up again. I was applying, applying, applying, got rejected from EY Partenon, which is the one company that I was really close to getting and didn't get, and I was really, really sad about it.
I never really got any, oh, I got an interview for McKinsey, but it was Portugal, and I didn't want to go to Portugal, so I ended up rejecting that interview because I was like, if I'm not going to go to Portugal, there's no point in prepping for this interview, and McKinsey is not going to be an easy interview, right? So
ended up rejecting that applied applied applied saw a really really cool like boutique consulting company called elixir ended up going for the elixir interview process got the offer took the offer very happily and i remember getting that phone call it was during my quarantine because now we're getting into 2020 this is when covid hit right february i am in portugal or it might have been march at this point but i'm in portugal quarantining in a hotel because my parents didn't let me see them before i quarantined for two weeks
So I was quarantining. I got this phone call from the recruiter. Yeah, like fireworks. Yeah, like best time of my life. This is when you see the graph go up. And I was ecstatic, ecstatic. I was so, so happy. I joined the company, I think, in the summer. I think it was around June time where I started working full time. I first started working remote because COVID was still a thing.
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Chapter 5: How did the guest transition from consulting to big tech?
But all right, see you guys in the next one. Bye-bye. Hope you guys have a good one.