Kieran Patel: BA (Hons) Law and Business Management, 2017-2020; Sales and Membership Executive at Tottenham Hotspur FC
“As much as university is about gaining an education, broadly speaking it’s also about growing up and developing the life skills important to future success. My time at the University of Winchester provided me with many transferable skills, which has set the precedence for how I have approached and developed my career.”
Kieran Patel joined the University of Winchester in 2017, after taking a gap year working for a recruitment agency in the hospitality and events industry. Kieran’s decision to pursue Law and Business Management was due to the synergies they both held within the world of recruitment, which helped Kieran pursue his career passion:
“Whilst I’d always wanted to get into the Hospitality and Events side of the sports industry, I found myself coming to it via roles within Recruitment. I was able to gain these roles given that my degree included modules on Employment Law, Human Resource Management and Company Law which are all relevant and applicable to recruitment firms – I would even say they are relevant to every job as, at the end of the day, almost everything is a business!”
Closely following his graduation in 2020, Kieran secured a role as an Associate Recruitment Consultant at Phaidon International, a micro-niche specialist which recruits for roles within the Clinical and Pharmaceutical industry.
“In this role, I was actively head-hunting people for jobs and generating leads by approaching companies with relevant people. One of the most interesting roles I managed to place was for a Director of Clinical Operations at BioNTech, which was working on the COVID-19 vaccine at the time.”
Whilst Kieran enjoyed the workplace setting, he made the decision to change career direction and wanted to pursue his initial passion of being immersed in a sports industry, whilst also wanting to protect his mental health and wellbeing in the long term.
“I really enjoyed the people I got to work and speak with at Phaidon International, but the working culture was quite a tough environment. Whilst I appreciated the challenge of this, I did not think that this was sustainable in the long run. I also wanted to get back into more front-facing roles within the sports industry.”
As an active LinkedIn user, Kieran noticed a role being advertised which happened to be his next career opportunity – Sales and Membership Executive at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. As Covid restrictions began to reduce, many large football clubs started to advertise more job opportunities. Having spotted his current job on LinkedIn, Kieran strongly recommends its use to all students and graduates:
“I would really encourage students and fellow graduates to create strong and active LinkedIn profiles. As a student, I was able to share updates being the Captain of the Futsal team, endorse other connections’ profile and create substance to my own. This was able to help me stand out as a graduate, especially in a saturated graduate labour market.”
Kieran credits a lot of his success to his time as a student at the University of Winchester, particularly the transferable skills he was able to gain from his degree and by taking part in extra-curricular activities.
“Having prior recruitment experience and a 2:1 degree is definitely invaluable to my CV, but my committee-level positions of Winchester Student Union’s Futsal team across my three years was equally important.”
“As Captain of the Futsal team, I learned about how to grow and organise a society, gain sponsorships from local businesses, and generate funds to keep the team going. This gave me a lot of tangible experience to talk about at interviews and developed my own business acumen.”
Kieran’s involvement with Futsal, and Winchester Student Union more widely, also saw him highly engaged with voluntary and charity work. This included organising and raising money for various charities such as CALM and Mind alongside his team. In 2020, Futsal won the Student Union Sports Champion award at the university’s Volunteering and Community Champions Awards.
Alongside this accolade, Kieran’s best memories as a student include both his extra-curricular and academic achievements.
“There are so many things I am proud to have been a part of including: Futsal winning the BUCS league and bringing the trophy home in 2018, winning awards for overall contribution and best society in 2019, and of course, finally graduating with my degree in 2020! The last grade I received was my highest one achieved – it enabled me to leave with an upper second-class honour’s degree.’
Kieran is looking forward to staying in the world of football for the current time, with a longer-term goal to work on the more operational side of the industry and bridge the link between Tottenham Hotspur with larger organisations (e.g., UEFA and FA). He intends to work his way through the ranks at the company, using the experience he learnt from his time at Winchester. He shares the below advice to other Law and Business Management students, as well as students currently at the University:
“As much as university is about gaining an education, broadly speaking it’s also about growing up and developing the life skills important to future success. My time at the University of Winchester provided me with many transferable skills, which has set the precedence for how I have approached and developed my career.”
“Having healthy pressure from a range of different roles whilst being a student gave me accountability and responsibility for being organised, punctual and learn how to keep to deadlines – attributes that go a long way in the world of work!”
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