Day in the Life of… Dariush Noonan

As a first year finance graduate my days tend to vary vastly. I am currently based in Thales Underwater Systems, Templecombe, (Somerset) and have a lot of exposure within the Central Finance team here. My day typically starts by replying to emails and then following up requests for reports/information. This is an aspect of the job I find very interesting as quite often you will have to investigate movements or analyse complex variances on anything from cash flow to headcount.

Following this, I can be involved in reporting and reviewing Overheads, reconciling Project Accounts with our General Ledger or even testing new reporting systems. The schedules we manage are frequently used to make strategic decisions; this gives a real sense of involvement and helps you to see the bigger picture. Thales as a fantastic working environment and within my first month I was given the chance to move around, liaise with Co-Directors and Cost Centre Managers, whilst physically verifying fixed assets within the business. Assisting with developing the Multi-year Budget is also very interesting. It again gives you the chance to see how we expect the business to perform and equally to project how certain elements require re-shaping. In addition to this, I have updated a Delegated Authority List and put together a Research Tax Credit claim. This enables further interaction with business managers and gives you great insights into a number of projects within Thales’s Underwater Systems business.

On the social side, graduates at Templecombe frequently have lunch together and always find a good excuse to arrange social gatherings. As well as this, the Finance community host an Annual Graduate Conference, offering another great chance to network with graduates from other sites. I have also represented Thales at a graduate careers day held at Sheffield University. Moreover, when visiting other sites (Crawley, Cheadle) I have been invited to attend site tours around the engineering workshops. On top of all this, Thales offers fantastic support toward professional qualifications; this helps increase your specific job knowledge, but also should enhance your professional career, particularly when working towards your Chartership qualifications. I initially envisaged a finance graduate as something of a number crunching cog, but this couldn’t be further from the truth and the stereotype has quickly diminished.