- Sofronne Mbambe

Meet Sofronne

At university, Sofronne studied Computer Science but the jobs available when she finished her degree were too far away, so she chose to pursue teaching instead.

She was a teacher in London for her entire adult life. She was passionate about her job, inspired by her students and incredibly good at what she did.

Despite her success, after 13 years, Sofronne felt it was time to move on to a new career. Since her studies, she'd remained interested in a career in IT, particularly business analysis.

Sofronne's journey

Sofronne began looking for opportunities in the UK’s fast-paced technology sector, but found it hard to break into the industry.

“It’s not an easy thing to make a career change. Most companies want you to already have the relevant experience for a role. But when you’ve spent your career in a different area, you have to find ways to translate your experience.”

In her spare time, she began trying some online training courses, but didn’t find them very engaging, until she saw an ad for WithYouWithMe, mentioning their free training pathways for women looking to break into tech.

"The ad said it didn't matter what your professional background was – WithYouWithMe would help you upskill and find a new job."

A new pathway

Sofronne signed up for Potential, but in between continuing to teach and looking after her family, she didn’t have time to take the training seriously – until she received a phone call.

Paula from WithYouWithMe’s Career Success team encouraged her to complete her psychometric and aptitude testing, which revealed Sofronne was well-suited to careers in digital project management and business analysis.

Having an existing interest in business analysis, Sofronne decided to enter the Business Analyst training pathway. She finished the pathway in around 2 months, finding time after work or on weekends to complete each module.

Paula contacted me about some upcoming jobs, and I was excited to hear that companies were offering roles to people like me who were looking for a career change.

Working towards a new role

Knowing there were job opportunities coming soon, Sofronne decided to finish up teaching and embark on a new journey.

“I was determined that this year I was going to move away from teaching. I’d been contemplating it for the last two years. I knew this was my opportunity and I was going to make the most of it.”

She attended a WithYouWithMe Job Accelerator event in central London where several companies were showcasing upcoming job opportunities and other Potential users were sharing success stories.

Following the event and a culture-fit interview, Sofronne began preparing for her Capstone project.

“We did two weeks of intensive training with the squad where we worked together on developing a project. It was challenging but I was confident because I knew I had the knowledge required to deliver the presentation.”

Making the transition from teaching to tech

“It had come to a point where I found teaching dull – every year following the same curriculum. Now I get to keep learning and advancing my knowledge in analytics technologies. For example, I’m learning to use Power BI to create dashboards and present different datasets.”

Sofronne is excited to continue to her lifelong learning in a fast-paced but flexible role, happy that she finally took a chance on trying a new career.

“When I was first researching WithYouWithMe I came across the testimony of people from lots of different backgrounds – veterans, lawyers and police – which encouraged me to have a go. And simply having someone from the team reach out to me gave me the confidence that I could do it.”

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Navigating the transition from teaching to tech