Chris McAlister
Chris' Graduate Story
Find out how studying at the University of Birmingham helped Chris achieve his career goals.
Graduation year: 2017
Degree Title(s): Joint honours BSc Economics and Political Science
Job title: Assistant Private Secretary to Director General for Culture, Sport and Civil Society and Great Britain athlete (400m hurdles).
Employer: Department for Digital Culture Media and Sport (Civil Service)
I think the university has everything, pushes you academically to achieve but also pushed me as a sportsman to train hard and eventually compete as a GB international multiple times.
Chris McAlister, Joint honours BSc Economics and Political Science, 2017
What does your role involve? A bit of everything, ensuring the senior civil servants I work for have everything they need. Generally I am the eyes and ears, looking out for policy issues and providing solutions, escalating up to senior staff if necessary. Most recently this involved ensuring the queue to see her late majesty’s lying-in-state was safe and accessible (not easy) which was a tiring but rewarding experience. I was out on the ground ensuring people were watered and warm enough on one particularly difficult day.
Can you describe the journey you went on to get this role? I plunged straight into a civil service job from university (after applying for absolutely anything I could find in politics), and it took me 4 years to find a role which really suited me and I was really interested in. I fell into this role by accident but set myself up by gaining experience along the way.
What do you enjoy most about your job? 2 things: every day is varied - one day I’m out manning the accessible queue for the lying-in-state one day, the next I’m scrutinising the feasibility of a football regulator, it’s all pretty cool. The other thing is I get a lot of senior exposure at quite a junior grade which is rare. Another thing is that my job is flexible enough to allow me to train in the evenings for elite athletics, my dual-career is something I’m very passionate about.
How did your time at Birmingham help prepare you for this role? I had a few committee roles in the athletics club which definitely helped the most. Especially the leadership opportunity in being Track Captain helped me to develop in leadership, communication and all of the various admin and organisation which I hated but was very good to improve my skills in.
What advice would you give to students interested in getting into your industry or role? Don’t worry too much about what the role is, you can make a lot of an individual role before you move on. Take the opportunities that come your way and there are many once you get in the civil service to do interesting stuff.
How did the University of Birmingham help you on your career path? I found the careers fairs really interesting, if nothing else to help me see what I didn’t want to do and that can actually be really valuable too. At the suggestion of my Politics professor I applied for the Civil Service fast stream and that set me up for my career! My course definitely highlighted strengths of mine which helped to push me, but mainly it just helped me enjoy politics which helped get me into this role.
Why should someone considering their university options come and study with us at Birmingham? I think the university has everything, pushes you academically to achieve but also pushed me as a sportsman to train hard and eventually compete as a GB international multiple times.