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Brick by Brick: How Christa Davies Rebuilt Her Engineering Career After a 20-Year Career Break · Work It Like A Mum

• 0:01
  Elizabeth Willetts: Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life.
• 0:14
  Elizabeth Willetts: I'm a working mum with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women Job Board and Community.
• 0:22
  Elizabeth Willetts: In this show, I'm honoured to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business.
• 0:29
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• 0:43
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• 0:50
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• 0:57
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• 1:07
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• 1:10
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• 1:52
  Elizabeth Willetts: Now back to the show.
• 1:55
  Elizabeth Willetts: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Work it Like a Mum podcast, where we delve into the journeys of extraordinary individuals who have pursued their passions against all odds.
• 2:05
  Elizabeth Willetts: Today I'm thrilled to introduce Krista Davis, an inspiring engineer who's loved the LEGO and curiosity about how things work led her to a fascinating career in engineering, from British aerospace systems to Air New Zealand and now at UK AEA.
• 2:22
  Elizabeth Willetts: Krista's journey is a testament to perseverance, adaptation and the pursuit of one's true calling.
• 2:28
  Elizabeth Willetts: Despite a significant career gap and the challenges of balancing family life with professional aspirations, Krista's story is one of resilience and triumph.
• 2:38
  Elizabeth Willetts: Join us as we explore Krista's remarkable return to engineering and her current role in the innovative department of race at UK AEA.
• 2:46
  Elizabeth Willetts: Thank you so much for joining me.
• 2:49
  Elizabeth Willetts: It's really lovely to chat with you and learn more about your experience.
• 2:54
  Elizabeth Willetts: I know that you've recently returned to work.
• 2:57
  Elizabeth Willetts: I know you were doing something slightly different, but returned to engineering at UK AEA.
• 3:01
  Elizabeth Willetts: So I'm going to be talking all about that, but before I guess we delve in, people listen to this and they have no idea who UK AEA are.
• 3:10
  Elizabeth Willetts: Do you want to give people a bit of a whistle-stop tour as to what your organisation is, what you do?
• 3:15
  Christa Davies: Yes, I'll give it a go.
• 3:17
  Christa Davies: So UK AEA stands for United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and they are in essence a research agency, a government research agency that are researching fusion energy.
• 3:34
  Christa Davies: As a spin-off from that, there's lots of other engineering and material science and other things going on on the same site, but it's all aimed towards that fusion energy.
• 3:52
  Christa Davies: What is fusion?
• 3:53
  Elizabeth Willetts: energy, because I'm not 100% sure and I'm sure there's lots of people listening that don't know what fusion energy is.
• 3:58
  Elizabeth Willetts: They'll turn on the lights at home and they'll know that they get electricity and that stuff comes from energy.
• 4:03
  Elizabeth Willetts: We hear a lot about energy bills going up, but what is actually fusion energy?
• 4:07
  Christa Davies: Fusion energy is how the sun works.
• 4:10
  Christa Davies: So inside the sun, particles of helium are being smashed together and they're making larger atoms of hydrogen and in that process, although there's high energy to smash them together, you get more energy out than you put in.
• 4:29
  Christa Davies: Traditionally nuclear power stations have used the opposite.
• 4:35
  Christa Davies: So they split things apart to get energy out, and that process is fine.
• 4:42
  Christa Davies: It's worked so far.
• 4:43
  Christa Davies: But being able to do it how the sun does it would be much cleaner from the point of view of how much radiation is left behind and how much nuclear waste you have to clear up later.
• 4:59
  Christa Davies: And the potential with the fusion is that it could be a continuous process.
• 5:07
  Christa Davies: So once you've set it off, the energy it produces will maintain the process.
• 5:14
  Christa Davies: I don't know if that's a clue, that's good.
• 5:16
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, that sort of just makes sense.
• 5:18
  Elizabeth Willetts: You know, you've heard a lot about nuclear power and it sounds something quite frightening and I think people are a bit like, oh, is it dangerous?
• 5:24
  Elizabeth Willetts: I mean, what would be your thoughts, you know, when they build a nuclear power stations and people don't want it too close to their houses.
• 5:34
  Christa Davies: I would say that definitely.
• 5:37
  Christa Davies: It's something that will take us through the next century with our power needs.
• 5:45
  Christa Davies: Yes, it's not ideal in terms of the waste that's left behind.
• 5:52
  Christa Davies: That's the big challenges.
• 5:54
  Christa Davies: Yeah, clear that up.
• 5:56
  Christa Davies: It's very long term waste from the nuclear fission that the traditional nuclear power stations.
• 6:05
  Christa Davies: However, fusion offers all the benefits of nuclear power without so much of the negatives of that leftover waste that you've got to deal with afterwards.
• 6:22
  Elizabeth Willetts: Okay, so is it not as clean as like wind power or wave power?
• 6:27
  Christa Davies: Certainly there's not the same carbon emissions as a coal power station.
• 6:33
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, and that sort of thing.
• 6:35
  Christa Davies: So it's clean in that sense.
• 6:36
  Christa Davies: It's not contaminating the environment in not adding to the carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere and the global warming.
• 6:47
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, and you're part of the race team.
• 6:50
  Elizabeth Willetts: What does race stand for?
• 6:52
  Christa Davies: Race stands for remote applications in challenging environments.
• 6:57
  Christa Davies: That doesn't really explain what it is.
• 7:00
  Christa Davies: So the challenging environment is anywhere that could be unsafe or uncomfortable or just inaccessible to human beings.
• 7:11
  Christa Davies: So it could be nuclear, but it could be deep under sea, it could be space, and then remote applications.
• 7:19
  Christa Davies: It just is referring to robots.
• 7:21
  Christa Davies: So robots would go into those challenging environments instead of humans to do whatever engineering work.
• 7:31
  Elizabeth Willetts: And what's your role in this department and what do you do?
• 7:35
  Christa Davies: Well, my official job title is mechanical design engineer and I'm just at the moment looking at something that doesn't sound that exciting sort of pipes and seals and connectors to do with the next generation of fusion power reactor that's being designed.
• 7:59
  Christa Davies: But it's so much in the realms of the edge of technology like that.
• 8:04
  Christa Davies: The temperatures are huge, the pressures are huge.
• 8:08
  Christa Davies: I'm not sure if we got materials that work in that environment.
• 8:12
  Christa Davies: When I show if we can, I bought it all together and keep it sealed for that long or if the radiation might affect it and the material that the bolts are made of that will cause them to Lose their strength over time.
• 8:30
  Christa Davies: So there's lots of technical stuff we're looking into.
• 8:35
  Elizabeth Willetts: Step in your wife.
• 8:36
  Elizabeth Willetts: Were you into science at school?
• 8:38
  Elizabeth Willetts: Is that your favorite?
• 8:40
  Christa Davies: Yeah, I was good at maths and good at science, not so good at the other.
• 8:45
  Christa Davies: So I'm english, history and all of the written subjects.
• 8:49
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, do you know?
• 8:50
  Elizabeth Willetts: I think it's interesting that people seem to have a calling.
• 8:53
  Elizabeth Willetts: You know what an engineer did when you were a child and if you got engineers in your family.
• 8:59
  Christa Davies: Yes, lots of generations of engineers in the family.
• 9:04
  Elizabeth Willetts: I really family calling because you was in your form.
• 9:08
  Christa Davies: you said you played with lego and yes, that, always that sort of thing interested me there, finding out how things worked, fiddling with lego and getting things working.
• 9:22
  Christa Davies: That just clicked with me somehow.
• 9:26
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, so you studied, I guess, math and science school?
• 9:29
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yes, and then remind me what did you study at university.
• 9:34
  Christa Davies: Then at university I studied aeronautical and astronautical engineering.
• 9:38
  Christa Davies: Wow, so that's airplanes and spacecraft.
• 9:43
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, wow that's such a cool you at that time, because I know I spoke to another engineer about years ago.
• 9:50
  Elizabeth Willetts: She was saying only eleven percent of engineers women and she was the only girl on her course.
• 9:56
  Elizabeth Willetts: Was it like that when you were at university?
• 9:58
  Christa Davies: Oh, it was definitely.
• 10:00
  Christa Davies: I think there were three hundred on the course and six of us were girls.
• 10:06
  Elizabeth Willetts: Wow, quite a big difference yeah, absolutely minority yeah, did you feel comfortable being that minority or?
• 10:16
  Christa Davies: Yes, I didn't find it a problem yeah I didn't really ever come across any Negatives towards girls being on the course.
• 10:25
  Christa Davies: Everyone sort of accepted, as I think if you were showing that you were capable of doing the work, then it made no difference to people yeah, absolutely when you went to university.
• 10:39
  Elizabeth Willetts: Do you want to work with planes?
• 10:40
  Elizabeth Willetts: Then I'll rock it.
• 10:41
  Elizabeth Willetts: That why you?
• 11:34
  Christa Davies: Yes, yeah, I did have an interest in space.
• 11:37
  Christa Davies: You know rockets, satellites and sort of the universe in general.
• 11:43
  Elizabeth Willetts: You know about Galaxy and stars and how they work and what's out there yeah, my daughter likes that we often take up to, like natural history in the science, music and like all the planets is crazy, isn't it?
• 11:59
  Elizabeth Willetts: When you really think about it, you think my gosh, you're so small and such a big.
• 12:03
  Christa Davies: It's mind blowing, isn't it?
• 12:05
  Elizabeth Willetts: the dumps you, the scale of it is just incredible that's the only thing to talk to you really clear than what you doing, and you graduated from university.
• 12:16
  Christa Davies: Well, I had been lucky enough to be sponsored through university by british aerospace space systems.
• 12:24
  Elizabeth Willetts: What did that mean them?
• 12:25
  Christa Davies: well, I had a year working for them before my degree.
• 12:29
  Christa Davies: Okay, so I have an apprentice really, so trying different work in different departments to get a real taste of what they did across the whole range of their work.
• 12:40
  Christa Davies: I'm then during my degree, each summer holiday I'd have a ten week placement back at british aerospace in a different department each time to try out something different.
• 12:52
  Christa Davies: So that was a really good way of testing out.
• 12:58
  Christa Davies: I guess.
• 12:58
  Christa Davies: If engineering what I thought it was, because you got to work in it before I fully committed to three years of a degree in engineering what also then had that hands on experience it made all the academic stuff much more relevant, because the academic stuff can be just lots of equations, lots of math, so that sort of stuff, yeah.
• 13:26
  Christa Davies: So putting it into a practical application, having Seen it in work, made the theory much more easy to think about yeah, absolutely did.
• 13:42
  Elizabeth Willetts: They pay for the meal studies.
• 13:43
  Elizabeth Willetts: Is that because you said you're sponsored or give you a grand tour?
• 13:47
  Christa Davies: Yes, so they paid me while I was working for the year and free to the summer holidays.
• 13:54
  Christa Davies: So that was a good way of I need some money, cuz you do, as a student, have to work at something.
• 14:02
  Christa Davies: But then it was relevant to the degree, so it was actually something you could put on your cv afterwards.
• 14:09
  Elizabeth Willetts: And did you join them after university?
• 14:11
  Christa Davies: then well I could have done, but at the time they were making some redundancies, they were downsizing.
• 14:17
  Christa Davies: So that's when I looked for what are the jobs were out there and I went to work in the automotive industry.
• 14:25
  Christa Davies: I actually worked for a company that made dashboard instruments such as speed elmeters, temperature gauges, fuel gauges, that sort of thing.
• 14:35
  Elizabeth Willetts: You know what the interest in the new year yes, yeah it was.
• 14:38
  Christa Davies: it was a very different pace to what how I'd worked, sort of, on satellites.
• 14:45
  Christa Davies: Add British aerospace, cuz satellite is one single project and it could take years and years, and years to build that one single satellite where, as In the automotive industry, you're turning out hundreds, maybe thousands of parts each weekend.
• 15:05
  Christa Davies: Yeah, there's a much faster pace and Customers want things sorted out quickly, so I'm on the hot if there's a fault learning curve day when you work and the feedback loop is so much quicker.
• 15:20
  Elizabeth Willetts: Cuz going to customers so quickly.
• 15:23
  Christa Davies: Yes, with the space industry there's a lot more preparation before hand.
• 15:28
  Christa Davies: So you think through every possible scenario where it could go wrong.
• 15:33
  Christa Davies: Have we covered that?
• 15:34
  Christa Davies: In case it occurs where, as in the automotive, is a bit of seat of your pants, we'll deal with problems.
• 15:42
  Christa Davies: I'll say come along.
• 15:46
  Elizabeth Willetts: I get that, and how long we there then fall.
• 15:49
  Christa Davies: I was there for about five years in that job Good job time Were you missing?
• 15:54
  Elizabeth Willetts: working in like the, because obviously you'd be in the university where it was aerospace and you know it was to do with aeroplanes and rockets and things like that and cars feels quite different.
• 16:05
  Elizabeth Willetts: Did you miss that?
• 16:07
  Christa Davies: I didn't really at first because everything was new and you're just on that learning experience and I was getting so much experience in production work and sort of how factories worked and the design process Then.
• 16:25
  Christa Davies: But after a while I did think, oh, I do fancy getting back to aerospace again, and we did.
• 16:34
  Christa Davies: My husband and I fancy trying New Zealand for a new few years.
• 16:39
  Christa Davies: We thought, oh, we've always fancied going out there to see what it's like.
• 16:46
  Christa Davies: Let's give it a try for a few years and see what we think.
• 16:49
  Christa Davies: I mean, even we didn't fully think that we would settle full time out there, but we did want to have that experience before.
• 17:02
  Christa Davies: Had you been to?
• 17:03
  Elizabeth Willetts: New Zealand before you moved there.
• 17:05
  Christa Davies: Yes, we'd had a holiday out there and we had several friends who lived out there.
• 17:11
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, it's so popular, as I know a lot of people that have moved out there and settled, yeah, and so how long were you in New Zealand for then?
• 17:18
  Elizabeth Willetts: For just over three years.
• 17:20
  Christa Davies: Okay, yeah, so it wasn't.
• 17:23
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, because I know you've had children.
• 17:24
  Elizabeth Willetts: Did you have your children out there or no?
• 17:27
  Christa Davies: we came back we decided that once we were at a stage we were going to start a family, New Zealand seemed way too far away from the support network to have kids out there.
• 17:42
  Elizabeth Willetts: So what were you doing in New Zealand then?
• 17:44
  Christa Davies: So out there, I worked for Air New Zealand at their maintenance.
• 17:49
  Elizabeth Willetts: Back in the aeroplanes.
• 17:51
  Christa Davies: Yeah, back at the aeroplanes.
• 17:52
  Christa Davies: So I worked at the airport maintaining them, which is such a cool place to work.
• 18:00
  Elizabeth Willetts: I can imagine it's so busy.
• 18:01
  Elizabeth Willetts: I mean my man.
• 18:03
  Elizabeth Willetts: New Zealand's quite a sunny place and I don't know if it is, but yeah, it's quite a nice place to work If you've been on holiday and coming in.
• 18:11
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yes.
• 18:12
  Christa Davies: It's a lovely place to, especially Auckland.
• 18:15
  Christa Davies: It's never too cold.
• 18:17
  Christa Davies: Well, when you compare it with the UK, it doesn't get really cold.
• 19:26
  Christa Davies: They have decent summers out there and nice two or three months that you're guaranteed nice weather, yeah, it's not like our summers where you're like well might be nice, yes, so.
• 19:41
  Christa Davies: I'm a bit hit and miss.
• 19:42
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, and I know my friend she's really into outdoorsy and horses and things like that and I've been seeing post videos on Facebook.
• 19:50
  Elizabeth Willetts: You know they're on these like amazing rides in the beautiful countryside out there.
• 19:54
  Elizabeth Willetts: It was quite an outdoorsy lifestyle.
• 19:56
  Elizabeth Willetts: If you're into that, it is yes.
• 19:59
  Christa Davies: And they've got such a variety of scenery and geography out there.
• 20:04
  Christa Davies: They've got massive mountains that are like the Alps.
• 20:07
  Christa Davies: You can have snow, you can go skiing or you can be on a beach.
• 20:11
  Christa Davies: Yeah, pretty much tropical temperatures, it's yeah.
• 20:16
  Elizabeth Willetts: Lovely.
• 20:17
  Elizabeth Willetts: You moved back here.
• 20:18
  Elizabeth Willetts: And then, yes, did you move back and you get a job and then start a van.
• 20:23
  Elizabeth Willetts: Talk me through what happened when you moved back.
• 20:25
  Christa Davies: No, we knew that we were going to start a family, so we moved back and we built a house in about six to nine months and started a family at the same time.
• 20:39
  Elizabeth Willetts: The house was kind of finished in time for the children Nice, and did you return to work then when you got back to the UK, or no, I didn't.
• 20:49
  Christa Davies: Everything happened quite fast and so I didn't go back to work straight after New Zealand.
• 20:57
  Christa Davies: It took a few years.
• 20:59
  Christa Davies: Well, we have three boys who are now 19, 18 and 16.
• 21:06
  Christa Davies: So those first few years were really busy and they just flew by.
• 21:12
  Christa Davies: Yeah, and kind of before I knew it I'd been out of the job scene for coming up for 10 years.
• 21:21
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, did you want to be a stay-at-home mom.
• 21:25
  Christa Davies: I hadn't planned to be.
• 21:26
  Christa Davies: It was always my intention to get back to my career.
• 21:30
  Christa Davies: It just didn't seem to happen.
• 21:34
  Christa Davies: Yeah, there wasn't kind of the time to fit it in.
• 21:38
  Christa Davies: And then, before I knew it, when I thought, oh yeah, I've probably got time to start thinking about work again, time had moved on.
• 21:48
  Elizabeth Willetts: So how long was this then when you started thinking, oh, maybe I should, you know, maybe I want to go back to work.
• 21:54
  Christa Davies: It was probably 10 years since finished doing my last engineering work.
• 22:02
  Christa Davies: But then I realized that it was a massive career break and I felt rather out of date, out of touch with what had been going on, how technology had advanced in those years in between.
• 22:17
  Christa Davies: I wasn't fully confident to go back to an engineering degree at career.
• 22:26
  Christa Davies: So I started looking for what training opportunities were out there, and the Royal Air and Articles Society were operating a scheme where they were giving bursaries for engineers who'd like to study for a masters.
• 22:43
  Christa Davies: They'd seen that there was a bit of a shortage of higher qualified engineers.
• 22:49
  Christa Davies: Yeah, and to encourage more engineers to go for that higher qualification, they were offering bursaries.
• 23:01
  Christa Davies: So I managed to get one of those and signed up for a part time masters degree in aerospace and that built your confidence yes, well, it just reassured me that I hadn't completely lost all of my maths and science skills in those 10 years with the kids and that I could keep up with the other students.
• 23:26
  Christa Davies: Who is studying for masters?
• 23:28
  Christa Davies: And it did just give me some extra Background and more up to date technical information that perhaps I missed out on over those years.
• 23:42
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:43
  Elizabeth Willetts: I do not mean I don't mind something about your masters, but you know I always find it by study something, spend a bit of time upskilling my confidence just like levels up, you know, with the skills, knowledge and I actually think that's the best thing you can do if you are lacking in confidence is actually just just going to study something and you are working with you at this point.
• 24:05
  Christa Davies: Right you doing yes.
• 24:06
  Christa Davies: At the same time I took on some part time work doing admin and reception that sort of thing, just to earn a bit more money that would cover the rest of the fees for the course and extra expenses, and I like to.
• 24:25
  Elizabeth Willetts: Money is always good when you got three kids absolutely how old your children, and then, at this point, money.
• 24:32
  Christa Davies: They must have been 1110 and 8 yeah so the oldest had just started secondary school.
• 24:40
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, how did you do all that?
• 24:42
  Elizabeth Willetts: Because I was.
• 24:43
  Elizabeth Willetts: You study in a master's, which I imagine is no me be.
• 24:46
  Elizabeth Willetts: You are working.
• 24:47
  Elizabeth Willetts: You still had your I need to do.
• 24:49
  Elizabeth Willetts: What was your days looking like them?
• 24:51
  Christa Davies: they were busy, the masters was quite easy to fit around everything else that was going on.
• 25:00
  Christa Davies: The way the course was structured you do a week at university.
• 25:05
  Christa Davies: You do a week of lectures, of workshops, of seminars.
• 25:10
  Christa Davies: You can do an intensive five days.
• 25:13
  Christa Davies: So I could be away from the family for five days.
• 25:18
  Christa Davies: Get all of that done.
• 25:19
  Christa Davies: I'm then at the end of those five days.
• 25:22
  Christa Davies: You'd be set your assignment and you have about eight weeks then to complete that at home.
• 25:27
  Christa Davies: So I how you can fit around, yeah I wasn't Week and then go back to every day life afterwards.
• 25:45
  Christa Davies: I must admit that I did lots of early morning sessions typing up and researching.
• 25:53
  Christa Davies: I found sort of five am till eight am before, when the house is completely quiet before anyone gets up for school.
• 26:02
  Christa Davies: That was my productive time.
• 26:05
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, absolutely special email before anything start flying.
• 26:09
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, I always have the good intentions of getting up, and then I never, never have you still an early bird or you?
• 26:18
  Christa Davies: yes, I think you are all you're not.
• 26:20
  Christa Davies: You're going by your body.
• 26:21
  Christa Davies: Clock on you, yeah, yeah.
• 26:24
  Elizabeth Willetts: Do you finish your master's and then talk with them?
• 26:26
  Elizabeth Willetts: We use some intending to get job from them.
• 26:29
  Elizabeth Willetts: What happened?
• 26:30
  Christa Davies: Yes, so I receive my master's in November twenty nineteen.
• 26:35
  Christa Davies: It took me five years in the end, study in part time.
• 26:40
  Christa Davies: But then obviously january, february, twenty twenty is when covered strike.
• 26:47
  Christa Davies: So all of my good intentions to Start applying for new jobs get back into the job market.
• 26:56
  Christa Davies: So we're all turned on their heads.
• 26:59
  Christa Davies: Aircraft work not flying, cuz no one was allowed to go on holiday.
• 27:04
  Christa Davies: Companies work Making their engineers redundant, so it seemed the worst time to be looking for a new job in a nautical or aircraft engineering.
• 27:19
  Christa Davies: But Cover didn't go on forever, did it.
• 27:23
  Christa Davies: And covered did change so much about the way we work and although at the time it seems disastrous timing, I need to qualify.
• 27:36
  Christa Davies: Just as covid strike, it's changed the way that we can work so much with the hybrid and remote working.
• 27:44
  Christa Davies: Actually my choice of jobs was much broader after covid, cuz those are.
• 27:54
  Christa Davies: I didn't have to restrict myself to those that work Extremely local and would fit in with local family life.
• 28:02
  Christa Davies: Yet I could really broaden the range, my mileage range.
• 28:08
  Christa Davies: I look at companies all over the UK who are offering remote or hybrid working.
• 28:15
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, it's looks for working important to you.
• 28:18
  Christa Davies: Well, it is in so much as I live in a relatively rural part of Wales so I'm already quite remote and would have a fair size commute just to the next biggest town.
• 28:34
  Christa Davies: So having that option to not commute every day just makes life so much easier.
• 28:41
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, you apply for roles.
• 28:43
  Elizabeth Willetts: Obviously could apply a lot broader.
• 28:45
  Christa Davies: Yes, more UK.
• 28:47
  Christa Davies: There was a lot more choice.
• 28:49
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, lulea, and then talk as you found.
• 28:52
  Elizabeth Willetts: What a return ship with UK AEN.
• 28:55
  Christa Davies: Well, even with my master's degree and being more newly qualified, the fact that I had a huge career gap on my CV.
• 29:07
  Christa Davies: I don't think I looked like the typical engineering job candidate.
• 29:14
  Christa Davies: So I had lots of rejections.
• 29:18
  Christa Davies: But finally I had an offer from UK AEA.
• 29:24
  Christa Davies: I'd applied for an engineering post with them and they came back to me and said well, you don't quite fit the requirements for that post, but we are hoping to start up a new STEM returner scheme to get people had a bit of a career break for one reason or another, or have changed careers from and have got a completely different background and then re-qualified and want to get into engineering.
• 29:58
  Christa Davies: So that's what the STEM returner scheme was aimed at.
• 30:03
  Christa Davies: So I have been there.
• 30:05
  Christa Davies: Guinea pig, oh really, are you the first one then?
• 30:09
  Christa Davies: I'm the first one that they've tried out.
• 30:11
  Christa Davies: Other companies do offer similar schemes, yeah, normally they start with like a cohort, don't you?
• 30:17
  Elizabeth Willetts: You normally start in like 10 or 12, but you're the only one, but I am so far the only one.
• 30:23
  Elizabeth Willetts: Oh no, I'll try.
• 30:24
  Elizabeth Willetts: So how have they looked then for you?
• 30:25
  Elizabeth Willetts: What have they been looking like for you then?
• 30:28
  Christa Davies: your return, it's been really, really positive.
• 30:31
  Christa Davies: Yeah, I've been surprised at how much engineering knowledge I still remember, yeah, so that's good.
• 30:39
  Christa Davies: But also everyone's been really welcoming that.
• 30:44
  Christa Davies: The department that I've joined, race, do get a lot of new starters between the graduates they take on.
• 30:53
  Christa Davies: They take on summer placement students, they take on year-in-industry students, so they're used to having lots of new people coming in through the department.
• 31:05
  Christa Davies: So they've got quite a comprehensive programme of helping people join and what information you need to know, what training you need to have and how your manager supports you.
• 31:19
  Christa Davies: That's very comprehensive and it works very well because they've done it for quite a few people already.
• 31:27
  Christa Davies: Nice, are you full-time?
• 31:29
  Christa Davies: Part-time?
• 31:29
  Christa Davies: I'm full-time, yes.
• 31:31
  Christa Davies: Hybrid, hybrid, yeah.
• 31:34
  Christa Davies: So I started the STEM returner scheme as full-time on site, so I was five days a week there, but the work first probably six weeks.
• 31:48
  Christa Davies: That was a choice that I made because I felt I wanted to get the maximum I could out of the experience and really start to get to know people, network and it is so much easier to learn things if you see them in front of you.
• 32:08
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, yeah, yeah, can I imagine?
• 32:09
  Elizabeth Willetts: Yeah, especially with your job.
• 32:11
  Christa Davies: I'm now just going in for team meetings, which tend to be once a week, most weeks, so I usually go in for that.
• 32:22
  Elizabeth Willetts: Nice.
• 32:22
  Christa Davies: But the rest of the time working from home.
• 32:25
  Elizabeth Willetts: And is it like a special scheme?
• 32:28
  Elizabeth Willetts: Is there an end date to it, or is it just continuous?
• 32:32
  Christa Davies: Yeah, no, it was 12 weeks from my start date as a sort of a probation period, I suppose.
• 32:38
  Christa Davies: So I could stop at any time with one week's notice and if UK AEA thought I wasn't suitable, again they could give one week's notice.
• 32:52
  Christa Davies: So it was a 12-week sort of probation, I guess, and an opportunity to sort of find your feet and see if it is for you.
• 33:02
  Christa Davies: If you fit it in, yeah, which was good.
• 33:06
  Elizabeth Willetts: And how do you find being back in engineering after all this time actually working in your day to day?
• 33:12
  Christa Davies: It's great.
• 33:12
  Christa Davies: Yes, I really realise now that it is my passion.
• 33:17
  Christa Davies: Yeah, you know in school what you're good at from what lessons you enjoy the most, and that tends to be how you choose your career, without, I guess, knowing what else is out there in the world.
• 33:32
  Christa Davies: But having been out in the world and come back to it, it's sort of reaffirmed that, yes, this is for me.
• 33:40
  Elizabeth Willetts: Brilliant.
• 33:41
  Elizabeth Willetts: And what would you say if anyone's listening to this and they have?
• 33:43
  Elizabeth Willetts: You know, daughters that are expressing an interest maybe in Lego and you know, and they may be thinking, yeah, it'd be a good job for my daughters to do.
• 33:50
  Elizabeth Willetts: What would you say to them?
• 33:51
  Elizabeth Willetts: How to encourage maybe more girls into engineering?
• 33:55
  Christa Davies: Oh, I'd say, just go for it.
• 33:57
  Christa Davies: You kind of you know if you love something, if you're into that maths and science, if you do like fiddling with Lego, finding out how things work, that is a good pointer towards knowing that you would be suitable as an engineer.
• 34:17
  Elizabeth Willetts: And you're something doing engineering.
• 34:20
  Christa Davies: Unfortunately not so far.
• 34:22
  Christa Davies: Yeah, One's doing computer science.
• 34:25
  Christa Davies: Another is very interested in biology and biochem.
• 34:30
  Christa Davies: Maybe the third one might become an engineer.
• 34:34
  Christa Davies: I'm keeping my fingers crossed that one out of three might keep the family tradition.
• 34:41
  Elizabeth Willetts: You're keeping the family tradition going and if anyone's listening to this and they are on a career break, you know from a job that they once were really passionate about.
• 34:52
  Elizabeth Willetts: What would be your advice to them?
• 34:55
  Christa Davies: Well, I'd say it's never too late.
• 34:57
  Christa Davies: Don't give up yet.
• 34:59
  Christa Davies: Keep giving it a try.
• 35:01
  Christa Davies: I'm guessing that the women who are listening to this podcast might be quite motivated anyway.
• 35:11
  Christa Davies: But they're probably meeting other mums around.
• 35:14
  Christa Davies: You know, at the school gate You're sat watching your kids doing their swimming lesson.
• 35:21
  Christa Davies: You might get chatting to someone who you find out.
• 35:25
  Christa Davies: Oh, they used to be a solicitor or they used to be whatever else, not necessarily an engineer and they've just let it slip and they just feel like that was too long ago.
• 35:39
  Christa Davies: I'll never get back into it, but encourage them, it's never too late.
• 35:46
  Elizabeth Willetts: How long your break was from last engineering job?
• 35:50
  Christa Davies: Pretty much 20 years between my last engineering job till this engineering job.
• 35:58
  Christa Davies: I know I did part-time admin in between and I could have just got stuck into just doing admin as a mum.
• 36:08
  Christa Davies: Admin is a skill that we excel at.
• 36:13
  Christa Davies: I decided to put in that extra effort to try and get back on track into my career.
• 36:27
  Elizabeth Willetts: You are a real inspiration.
• 36:28
  Elizabeth Willetts: If anyone's this and they're on a career break I mean, krista, you had a pick-up career that you left 20 years ago and you're flying in it and the skills you've remembered everything.
• 36:41
  Elizabeth Willetts: It's not gone.
• 36:42
  Elizabeth Willetts: Then if you can do it, then I think anybody can do it.
• 36:45
  Elizabeth Willetts: You are such an inspiration.
• 36:47
  Elizabeth Willetts: Thank you so much.
• 36:49
  Elizabeth Willetts: It's been so fascinating to chat with you.
• 36:51
  Elizabeth Willetts: Where can people find you, maybe connect with you, learn more about UK AEA?
• 36:55
  Elizabeth Willetts: Where would be the best places to go?
• 36:57
  Christa Davies: I am on LinkedIn and UK AEA and Race have their own websites.
• 37:05
  Elizabeth Willetts: Brilliant.
• 37:06
  Christa Davies: That's a good place to look.
• 37:07
  Christa Davies: They have some really interesting videos on YouTube about the science that they're doing there and the robots.
• 37:17
  Christa Davies: If you want to see actual videos of those, have a look for their YouTube channels.
• 37:23
  Elizabeth Willetts: It sounds like they're good.
• 37:24
  Elizabeth Willetts: If you see one of their jobs then maybe you think that would be interesting.
• 37:27
  Elizabeth Willetts: If I have 100% the right skills maybe you've been on a career break like Krista then they're worth applying to because they sound like they've got such a proactive recruitment team they're able to suggest.
• 37:37
  Christa Davies: Definitely.
• 37:37
  Christa Davies: I suggest that if you have had that big career break UK AEA aren't the only organisation doing this STEM returner scheme Look at who else is out there.
• 37:51
  Christa Davies: Perhaps you're not a mechanical engineer, perhaps you're electrical or structural, or just have a look out there.
• 37:58
  Christa Davies: It gives you 12 weeks to have a taster of the work.
• 38:04
  Christa Davies: You're not fully committed.
• 38:06
  Christa Davies: You can see a few, fit in with the team and if they're who you actually want to work for and you've got nothing to lose.
• 38:15
  Elizabeth Willetts: Absolutely not Well.
• 38:17
  Elizabeth Willetts: Thank you so much for joining me today and sharing your story.
• 38:21
  Christa Davies: Thank you.
• 38:24
  Elizabeth Willetts: Thank you for listening to another episode of the Work it Like A Mon podcast.
• 38:28
  Elizabeth Willetts: If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend.
• 38:35
  Elizabeth Willetts: If you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode.
• 38:42
  Elizabeth Willetts: You can also follow my recruitment site Investing in Women on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
• 38:47
  Elizabeth Willetts: Until next time, keep on chasing your big dreams.