A view of our consultant pathway, from our Associate Consultants

Veran’s Associate Consultant Pathway is a tried and tested scheme for graduates and non-graduates, looking to start out in consulting. Sally Livermore, our development coach explains more: ‘our Associate Consultant Pathway is where we welcome people from school and university. We provide both on-the-job and structured training and support them throughout their development journey. As part of the scheme, the Associates become quickly integrated into client projects and get to experience many different aspects of consulting. 

– many of whom have been through the programme themselves!’ 

Sally Livermore on her role as development coach to the Associate Consultants

Our Associate Consultants tell all 

Alexander Khan, Associate Consultant (joined in summer 2024): 

‘I was open to a range of career paths when leaving University, but consulting stood out to me due to its varied work and the skills I could develop. I found Veran through an Associate Consultant job posting on LinkedIn and decided to apply since it ticked all my boxes for my perfect first job, and three months down the line I can say it has not disappointed me! Since joining, I’ve been learning about Veran’s different workstreams and communities, learning how to use specialist software alongside other Associate Consultants (or ACs as we refer to them internally), and actively supporting colleagues and clients on a few different HR transformation projects. I’ve also had plenty of support from others and feel like I’m a key member of the team already!’ 

Kesh Wang, Associate Consultant (joined in Summer 2024): 

‘Since joining the Associate Consultant Pathway, I've received excellent learning and development support that has been integral to my growth. Veran offers a lot of learning opportunities that focus not only on technical and soft skills including leadership, collaboration, presenting, active listening and even diving into our personality types. So far I’ve had the opportunity to work on a government project helping them to launch a new people system, where I’ve had the chance to work with colleagues from Veran and have also had plenty of contact with clients. Beyond project work, I’ve joined the Sustainability Society, where together with a team member I have set up a monthly online org-wide sustainability quiz and I have written articles on sustainability. Most interestingly, I’ve been calculating company emissions for a carbon accounting initiative.’ 

Eden Theodore, Associate Consultant, with colleague Anand

Eden Theodore, Associate Consultant (joined in Spring 2024): 

‘I’ve always wanted to work on project-based tasks, where I can apply theories to guide my work and dive into research. What drew me to consulting was the variety of projects and the dynamic environment, which keeps things exciting and offers new challenges that push me to grow. Veran stood out as such a sociable company, with a great mix of events like netball, tennis, and activity-based socials. What really impressed me was seeing how many consultants choose to stay at Veran long after completing the consulting pathway—it’s a true testament to the amazing culture here. 

Through the consulting pathway, we’ve had dedicated ‘pathway’ days where people from across the business come together to share their expertise. It’s been such a great way to work with my cohort of ACs while also meeting more people across Veran. It’s a bit like diving into the deep end, but with someone right there on the sidelines coaching you every step of the way. There’s such a strong sense of community here—everyone is so supportive and encouraging, always pushing you to learn and grow. 

I’ve had the chance to work on a variety of projects across different sizes and sector. Right now, I’m working with a medium-sized local council, supporting their HR function on a Phase Zero project. My role includes creating workshop packs, taking notes during workshops, producing key outputs, liaising with the client, project managing for the HR team and collaborating with other functions to prepare for delivery board meetings. It’s been a fast-paced project, and I’m absolutely loving it! I'm learning so much every day and it has been incredibly rewarding. 

Being part of my netball team has been such a highlight—I love playing every week, and we recently won the league! I’m also part of the Change Community, where I team up with a fellow AC to host knowledge transfer sessions every other week. It’s been a great way to share ideas and learning more about Change. On top of that, I’m involved in the Learning and Development Community, where we’ve been working to make learning more accessible so it’s now easier to find information about training & courses available.’ 

Tom Goude, former Associate Consultant and now a Change Management Consultant (joined in Spring 2022): 

Joining the Associate Consulting Pathway as an AC was a great experience that I can't recommend highly enough. Veran gave me the space to grow professionally and personally. What I love about working at Veran are the opportunities and the culture. I’ve been lucky enough to try different aspects of transformation: HR, Finance, project management and change management. The company culture is also great here – there are lots of socials and learning opportunities and sometimes we combine the two together with a talk by one of our colleagues over pizza. I’m on the social committee which means organising our events. These can be sporty or a more relaxed activity – most recently we hosted a quiz night where we could all relax together as a team over food.  

Tom Goude, former Associate Consultant, with colleagues Tom, Rhiannon, Alana and Bernard

What are we looking for in you 

Our Associate Consulting Pathway (ACP) is a structured programme designed to get new ACs contributing to our client projects within 3 months. There’s a mix of on-the-job learning with tailored training sessions designed to ensure our ACs have a high level of understanding of what we do, how we do it, and what the expected outcomes are for our clients​. At Veran we have five professional communities (Data and Enterprise Architecture, HR, Finance, Project Delivery and Change Management) and our ACs have the opportunity to work in all of them. If you have strong communication skills, love problem-solving, have a collaborative mindset, are enthusiastic, dedicated and are fascinated by how technology supports and drives business, we would love to hear from you! Apply now at https://talent.sage.hr/jobs/ab5121b6-965d-40e8-9de9-711314478bf8