First person: Keeping a close link with the past

When Gordon Cunningham graduated in 1995, he knew his time at Glasgow Caledonian University had given him the skills he needed to pursue his career as a QS, but what he didn’t know was that his first job would be the refurbishment of one of the old lecture rooms in the Hamish Wood Building that he had been sitting in earlier that same year. Now the managing director of Paisley-based construction firm Clark Contracts, he speaks of his close relation with his old university:

"I am always pleased when I come back to the university and see how the campus has developed over the years since I was a student there.

You cannot fail to be impressed when you look at the facilities like the continuing professional development centre, which we worked on last year.

It was one of the tightest programmes we have ever worked on as part of Douglas Little’s team in the Estates Office.

By far the most enduring connection between the firm and the university is Clark Contracts recruitment policy. Every year, former students return to talk to the QS and construction management students about what it’s like to work and study at the firm.

What makes our careers presentation different from the others is that we do not send in the HR people or the business development manager, our presentations are done by former students of the university.

This approach works well for us and I think that the students enjoy hearing directly from their peers about their experience of the industry and what it’s like to work at Clark Contracts as a placement student or new graduate," Gordon Cunningham.