My Road into Fintech | by Isabelle Atunrase

We’re proud to have reached another milestone on our mission: our community has reached 10,000 apprentices and alumni. In this series, we’ll be celebrating this by sharing ten unique stories from some of our most inspiring Community members. 

Comment below on how the Community is helping you achieve your goals!

“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” – Michael Jordan

I started my apprenticeship with Multiverse as an HR Apprentice in November 2017 at a fintech startup called Tandem Bank at the time. I was one of five apprentices within the business and each of us worked in different teams, which was great as we got to learn from each other. 

I was new to working in an office so there were many challenges I faced such as learning how to effectively communicate with colleagues and how to manage my time effectively to complete tasks.

Completing my apprenticeship at Multiverse really helped me to overcome these challenges, especially when working with my coach Jen at the time who supported me through my assignments. We were able to discover my strengths and weaknesses whilst also discovering what I enjoyed most about working in HR. One of my favourite memories was visiting schools in London where I shared my apprenticeship story as part of the Multiverse outreach programme which really helped to build my confidence in public speaking.

I’m very much a chatty people person so I quickly discovered that the recruitment element of HR was very appealing to me as I got the opportunity to speak to many different people and also work on projects that developed my understanding of how recruitment works.

Once I discovered that recruitment was my passion, Multiverse helped me move my apprenticeship into a recruitment coordinator role at Metro Bank where I learnt the ropes around scheduling interviews, running company events and starting to develop some of the crucial skills needed to be a recruiter e.g. communication, project management and talent sourcing via hiring platforms. I knew this was what I wanted to do which is why I decided to make the move, It was here that I completed my apprenticeship in business administration and kicked off my full-time career into recruitment.

Since finishing my apprenticeship, I have done a few roles such as a Talent Sourcer whose main priority is to find talent via sources such as Linkedin and guide them through the recruitment process. I am now a Talent Partner at GoCardless where I manage the hiring of roles from beginning to end with stakeholders whilst completing additional team projects to help improve the overall recruitment process for candidates.

I am also now a co-chair of GoCardless’s BEAM (black, ethnic, Asian, minority group) where I help to organise events and educational resources for employees within the business. I was also nominated at the black tech achievement ceremony for the rising star award in March 2022 whilst also completing my CIPD qualification in the same month.

I recently discovered that I have ADD (attention deficit disorder) which means I struggle to concentrate on certain tasks for long periods of time and can find sitting still or not talking for long periods of time a challenge. Looking back, this was definitely something that challenged me when starting my apprenticeship however now that I am aware of it, I am able to control it better and have enhanced self-awareness of these symptoms which makes my work life much easier to manage. 

Overall, Multiverse was the initial stepping stone in helping me find my passion and developing those initial key skills needed to succeed which I still develop to this day.They helped me to be confident in my abilities, to not compare myself to others and made me realise the importance of still being yourself at work and seeing the opportunities that can appear by doing so. 

I hope whoever reads this will feel inspired and encouraged to explore their passions and strengths and use that to help build a great career in the future!

Isabelle Atunrase completed the Business Administration programme at Multiverse in October 2019.