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PwC Employability E-learn Interview script - David

Podcast – Innovation:

Candidate: David

Listen option B: 

Interviewer: Describe a time when you felt you've shown creativity or innovation to solve a problem for instance at home, work, university or perhaps college

Sure, when I was living in university halls I came up with a new way to change the code which grants access to the halls of residence. I think this was pretty creative as it helped solve a problem that annoyed everyone in my block of flats….basically, we weren’t always aware of when the code was changed or what the new code was as it was changed on an ad-hoc basis – for security reasons - and the residents, or at least not all of the residents, weren’t always notified. As a result we kept getting locked out….I know I had to go round to a friends to stay a few times because I didn’t know the new code after a night out – the next day I would have to go to security and ask them …. And they would just laugh and say sorry (- aghast! - laughs).

As I mentioned, the code was changed every so often; but this wasn’t done consistently and they wouldn’t always notify all of us when it was changed. We kept asking staff to notify all of the residents and to change this on a more consistent basis - but it was only done when someone remembered….  plus there were times when they’d forget to e-mail everyone with the new code. People were regularly stuck until someone who knew it came along. Not great, especially when it was cold! (laughs).

I’ve got quite a bit of IT knowledge so I offered to look at their system and I was confident that I could improve this to automatically make the code change on a set date each month. The staff who managed the university halls of residence agreed and so I created a programme on their system which meant that the code changed on the 1st of every month and the new code was automatically emailed to all residents. 

Interviewer: so, what impact did your solution have?

It had a big impact…. it stopped the issue of the residents being locked out and we were all - me included – notified of the new code as soon as it was changed. I knew it was a great solution because no one had ever solved the problem before….. Plus, I got lots of praise from my flatmates and other residents and from some of the staff who now didn’t need to manually change this and then contact the residents with the new code… and now it didn’t rely on someone remembering to complete these two actions….everyone agreed it was a good idea and thanked me for sorting out the issue. As far as I know, I don’t think anyone’s been locked out for not knowing the code again….. ….just wished I’d thought of it sooner! (Laughs) 

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