Having graduated from a degree, as pleasurable as being burned at the stake – Accountancy, I can honestly say I had no idea what career path I would like to pursue. Accountant, Investment Banker, Management Consultant were all options that had been fully exhausted. I.T.? Well considering I achieved an E at A/s level ICT and my decision process for purchasing a new laptop, involves walking into PC World and asking the overly zealous attendant for a laptop that has a nice colour and holds lots of pictures. RAM? Gigabytes? Dual-compressors? As long as it plays DVD’s and accesses the internet when I press the little blue, e, thingy who cares? I thought I was probably too luddite for a career in technology.

 

Tectrade of course cropped up, described by my docile recruitment consultant as a company that specialises in ‘data storage and data back-up’. My understanding stretched to large memory sticks but that was about it. However; the role involved…..COLD CALLING eurghhhh. Isn’t that what ‘people’ do, ‘people’ not like me. A job as desirable as eating your neighbour’s shower curtain. Unfortunately; for ‘cold-callers’ everywhere, the professions reputation has been dragged through the mud for years and citizens of the UK would rather stand on a land-mine than accept a call from a ‘cold caller’. It’s a profession that is held in the same esteem as ‘Wetherspoons Toilet Cleaner’ on a Sunday morning. Yet the role at Tectrade sounded different, like it had progression, a clear path, a plan. Plus it was ‘business calling’ rather than the conventional, “Hello Mr Gree, you have been randomly selected for….”

 

Having woken up at 2:15 a.m. to catch my 2.45 a.m. bus to London, (bus broke down on the way, Megabus the equivalent of rolling pound coins over a drain, sometimes you’re lucky, sometimes you’re not, long story short, logistical nightmare) I guess I didn’t know what to expect. I’d read a bit about Tectrade on their website but still had an extremely hazy understanding of what the company actually did. All I knew was I was being interviewed by two Tectrade luminaries. COO Alex Fagioli, I had read, was an experienced presenter and was responsible for company strategy. Fortunately I have always held down jobs in various sectors, retail, catering, call-centre’s, but have always been a mere cog in their respective corporate structures. You don’t meet the people who are actually responsible for the strategic direction of a company, unless they make an incredibly brief cameo to shake your hand, pronounce your name wrong and tell you to ‘keep up the hard work’ in an incredibly condescending tone, making you feel as valued as Nick Clegg in the Coalition government. So this was quite a unusual scenario for myself, one I looked forward to greatly.

 

Without shamelessly promoting Tectrade, I knew from the first interview this was the company I wanted to join. At 22, despite my greatest efforts to prevent it, I have to start my career. Luckily it seems I’ve joined a company that is rising out of the ashes of an economic depression like a phoenix. Alex and Ayaila Mir were incredibly convincing and candid during my interview and explained that this is a fantastic company to join but you have to put the effort in and work your way up. I’m sure the term “great company to work for” is about the single most over used phrase in the Westernised world, coined by such monumental corporate disasters like Enron, WorldCom & the Lehman Bros. but with no intention to deceive, Tectrade truly is a great company to work for.

 

‘Business Calling’ was of course a baptism of fire. A succession of voicemails awaits most days, and asking IT Directors/Managers questions around their backup & storage environment seems like giving them a license to speak in a different language:

 

“Well we’ve just implemented an XIV SAN, replicating across three sites, disk-to-disk BU’s, beginning the process of looking into de-duplication and hierarchical storage manager…….”

 

“Huh?”

 

It’s a tough but an incredibly rewarding and satisfying job with a rich bounty of prospects in waiting. Ultimately lead generation via the phone is the most difficult part of the sales process but starting here gives you an exposure to the full sales process unlike no other. Tectrade is a company, theoretically, that should always be in business. Data is expanding at an astounding rate and companies will always need to backup and store data. As prospects go, at 22, having had to hide the razors most days studying accountancy, I’ve fallen into an excellent job/ career here. Surrounded by helpful and driven people I’m sure will only to serve to aid my ascent up the Tectrade ladder. With a tremendous blend of young and old, technical and personable in the company, Tectrade will continue to make enormous tremors in the backup & storage market, going from strength to strength.