Dwayne Jones

Dwayne Jones 

Tell us about your career journey 

 I joined Cogito as a Graduate after doing a degree in Journalism and Communications, initially as a Researcher. I’ve been here for three years now and I’ve moved from being a collector of data to an analyst and interpreter. 

Tell us about your role at Cogito 

My role involves a mix of research and insight. I help make stories out of the insights that we develop, drawing everything together. At the end of the project, once we’ve developed the whole dashboard, I’ll be responsible for writing the narrative that sums up everything we’ve discovered.  

Aside from that, I write a lot of our blogs – ensuring we’re talking about what’s going on at the moment in the job market and the world of work. My responsibility’s just to read up on what’s going on and to report and create blogs. Case studies are also a big part of what I do. So, at the end of a project, I’ll speak with other team members and pull the story of the project together. 

What does a typical day look like? 

 It can very much vary. It could be that we’ve got a report to write – so it would be at the end of a project, and I’ve got a dashboard in front of me and I’d be expected to write text around that. It can involve giving my colleagues a quick call, asking them, “What do you see in this?”, “Do you agree with how I’m looking into it?” And so on. 

Other days could be typically just looking through other previous pieces of work, considering the next stages for blogs or case studies as well.  

What do you enjoy about the role? 

I like that every project seems to be different. Even if we are working with the same client, it’s never the same. There’s always a new challenge or a new trend that’s established, or just learning something interesting. I think what I’ve always liked is that we’re not specific to a particular industry, so you’re building knowledge in everything. I do just quite like that whole process of feeling like I’m continually learning. 

What project are you most proud of? 

We’ve been working with a retailer who is looking at international expansion. They were keen to understand firstly who their competitors were and which ones had gone through international expansion before. We looked at what they’d done, how successful it had been. Overall, we were preparing them to go for that international expansion, giving them tips on what to do, what not to do and what’s worked well for others in the past. What I enjoyed about it was that we were free to look into any aspect of any competitor and relate it to our client. It felt like we were giving them really valuable insight to help their business to succeed. 

What does it feel like to work for Cogito? 

 Really positive overall. Since I joined, I’ve always felt part of a team. I feel like that’s something that the business is really big on – cohesion. I’ve always felt that if I’ve got a question, I can just ask the question. It’s better to just ask the question than to be struggling on your own. I feel like that whole “team” aspect is really good. I feel like, as a business, Cogito is quite invested in their people as well, which I really like. If there’s something that you want to do or a way that you want to develop yourself, I’ve always felt comfortable in just voicing that and always felt supported. It’s a positive team and supportive culture, that’s how I’d describe it.