a day in the life

Consulting analyst

My name is Helena and I’m a Consulting Analyst at dandolopartners. Prior to working at dandolo, I studied law at the University of Western Australia. I also completed a Bachelor of Arts majoring in French and Political Science & International Relations.  

A big part of my time at uni was spent volunteering in different organisations which shaped where I wanted to end up post-uni. One of the best things about working with dandolo is that I have been able to use what I have learnt and build on areas of interest. For example, one of the volunteering experiences I had was mentoring high school students from low socio-economic high schools to develop vocational pathways post school. Currently, I’m working on a project improving vocational pathways for high school students. This allows me to build on my existing skill set and area of interest.  

As well as working in areas I am interested in, I’ve also been given opportunities to learn about new areas and develop new skills very early on in my role. This has been rewarding, though challenging, and has been an invaluable experience.  

This is what a Monday might look like: 

9:00am 

Today I'm working from home and start around 9am. The first thing I do is look at what work I have for the week and set up a tentative plan for what I'd like to get done. Then, I've been rostered to chair the team meeting at 10am so I prepare some notes on it. We include a segment on Indigenous culture, people or ideas as part of our meeting. Today, I'll be doing a presentation on Aboriginal Justice Agreements in the Northern Territory and Victoria which is an area I have worked on in uni.  

10:00am 

We have our team meetings through Microsoft teams with some people joining from the office and some from home. It's always great to catchup with everyone and hear project highlights from the past week. Project managers and directors also let project teams know what projects we'll be working on during the week and any key deliverables the wider team should be aware of. 

11:00am 

I go into the office for the rest of the day as there is a face to face client meeting that I'd like to attend. The project provided different cost and market scenarios for an edtech provider moving away from government funding.  I've been helping the project team for a couple of weeks and am keen to see how the client receives the work. After the client meeting, we chat about how it went and what how we’d like to action feedback.  

12:00pm 

I have my lunch with a few other people in the office. We chat about what projects we’re working on currently. I’ve learnt a lot about different projects through chats like these. Mini updates are really helpful for when I work on similar projects in the future as I can ask people who have worked with the same client or on the same subject matter for advice or problem solving. It’s also interesting to know what’s going on around the office and how everyone’s going. We spoke about a new project around creating policy institutes around key social issues for a major philanthropic organisation. The team are looking at what gaps exist in the current space and where this organisation could add value. 

1:00pm 

After lunch I have a couple of hours to complete project work. A project I’m working on is looking at best practice maths teaching through online or digital technologies. Although, I never thought of myself as a ‘maths person’, the project has changed my perspective of the value of maths teaching. Today I’m working on a report to the client with an initial view of what best practice looks like from our interviews and desktop research. We’ve had the opportunity to speak with maths teacher experts and different states to get their view. I’ve been tasked with designing the structure of the report based on the previous fieldwork. I have really enjoyed having a first go at working out what our key recommendations would be.  

3:00pm 

Every fortnight on Mondays, one of the team presents for an hour on a topic or project of interest. Everyone at dandolo has interesting experiences and knowledge that can be used for both professional learning and personal interest. In the past we’ve had presentations on Pakistani politics, the early childhood and care sector, poker skills and how to build models on excel. Today, Joe is presenting on the ins and outs of the airline industry including flight code trivia and Q&A. The most interesting fact was that China’s airline delays are due to military flights restricting when commercial flights can depart.  

4:00pm 

Coming from an arts/law background, I haven’t had a lot of experience with excel or data. It’s something that I’ve always been interested in learning and have seen in projects at dandolo. To support this, we were given excel training last week for new starters. The training was tailored to what we’d use in a dandolo project and made it much more accessible. 

To get more practical experience, I’ve been paired with a senior consultant who is working on a model for the early childhood and care sector. I’ve been able to see how the model is built and what logic is used behind it. For the rest of the afternoon I’ve been working on a small part of the model and get to do analysis on the model outputs.   

5:00pm 

We’re getting started on a new project around domestic and family violence in Australia. The client is a philanthropic organisation looking to work in the space and we’re providing strategy advice for where best to act. I’m developing pages on context in the space which is really interesting as this is my first time working in the space.  

5:45pm 

At the end of the day I set up any tasks for the next day and send off summary emails to managers I’m working with. I then say bye to the rest of the office and head home.