Patrick Grauel - Bachelor Student From France
Yana Immis
Why a German would study a Bachelor degree in English in Germany? Why not in the German language? Read this wonderful success story of a consultant from Bali with Munich roots here.
| Nationality | German by passport (French by heart) |
|---|---|
| Where did you live? | Budapest (Hungary), Bali (Indonesia), Loughborough (England) |
| Are you in Germany? | Yes |
| What is your current occupation? | Working |
| What is your future goal? | Own business in Indonesia |
| Would you like to stay in Germany? | Yes |
Chapter 1: Citizen of the world
Basically, both of my parents were born in Germany. My father is from the North of Germany, and so is my mother, but if you ask me where I am from, I would say, I’m French.
My mother grew up in France, and that’s where she went to school. She had a tough time learning French as this was a new environment for her, but she put all the efforts and managed. That’s how she became the French person the people know today. She taught my brother and me French. At an early age on we went to a French school in Munich. This way, we spoke French first; German and English at a native level later on (happy childhood).
My mother is a powerful woman, never underestimate her stubbornness. She would put a lot of pressure on you. In Summer, when all the kids were having the time of their life, I had to do extra work and extra classes. I hated school and, I guess, because of that, I was terrible at this whole studying thing. I first had to learn flute, then rescue-swimming classes, then taekwondo, then transverse flute (another type of flute because obviously there are not enough types of flutes out there) and tennis.
One day I just quit it all, rebelled, destroyed my room and ran away from home. It was raining, not a beautiful day. Whoever is reading this, please do not repeat! I stopped all the hobbies at age 13 due to a lot of pressure – I just couldn’t take it anymore.
It was a turning point…
Actually, a good one. My mother changed. That’s when I started to pick the things I like. I decided to come back to tennis myself and to do the civil service, which until recently was mandatory.
In a nutshell, in Germany, you have 3 options:
Military service - nope to that
Civil service (hospitals & taking care of people) - nope to that too
FSJ - Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr – one year you get paid “peanuts”, but you do something related to sports and good for society.
Here is what I did: I worked for my very first tennis coach. I was coaching people from schools that have a high number of immigrants. In exchange, the Bavarian state paid for my tennis coach license (The Bavarian state is asking you to pass a couple of written and practical exams to become a licensed tennis coach.) That was cool. I actually learnt to ‘sell myself’and how to become a good tennis coach.
Until today, when I am low on cash, I sign up to teach from time to time.
Chapter 2: Life is about coincidences
When my civil service was over, I had to make a university choice. I did not even consider outside of Germany, because I made a very decent income as a tennis coach and I find Germany to have some of the best universities. I chose a Bachelor program in the English language with small international groups (25 students per class). In German state universities, the groups can be 200-700 people, that’s not for me.
Since I always felt attracted to good books and movies (usually the best books are always in English), this felt like a natural decision. I was not very sure what to study, so I opted for a degree in business administration because I knew it would open a wide variety of opportunities.
I finished my Bachelor degree with a few ups and downs here and there, and then I thought what do I do next?
Doing a Master degree right away with no work experience? Nah, not for me.
I applied for jobs across the whole world. Germany, the UK, Dubai, Singapore. The criteria for my applications was a company with a great name to get experience and a name on my CV.
I used quantity over quality in applications for jobs.
I decided not to apply for internships at all, hoping on a lucky scenario. And the lucky scenario happened, by coincidence: I met one guy, who worked for KPMG, mentioned that I would love to work for them and landed in a job. As easy as that.
The network won’t work for you unless you work for it yourself.
Speak out, apply, go for it! If you can sell yourself well during the interview and CV stages, don’t do an Internship.
KMPG in Budapest (Hungary) created a new international department from scratch to take care of taxation and I really thought it could be a good fit. My father always told me if you want to be an entrepreneur, you need to understand a few things: taxation, sales and (corporate) law. If you do not know them, your chances to be successful are under risk.
I knew precisely a career in taxation was nothing for me, and I am pretty sure many people would think the same way, but there is something I could learn here. Looking back my one year at KPMG saved a couple of thousands of euros easily! (Note: if you are looking for a very stable job with high wages, taxation might be something you should look into).
Never underestimate the power of foreign languages and experience abroad, it broadens your horizons and opens doors! In Budapest, as a German, I landed a job easily. It would have been much more challenging to get into the same position in Germany. I had 2 interview sessions with the leading HR and an assessment center afterward (Excel exam & logical reasoning, which was very weird frankly speaking).
It was not easy to move to Budapest after living all my life in a beautiful city of Munich. I really hesitated to go there a lot, that’s why I visited before sealing the deal.
End result: I fell in love with the architecture - it is a beautiful city. After living there for a year, I realized, that a salary increase is not relative to western countries at all and Hungarian people are pretty tough to handle. They are somehow drawn to pessimism (for historic reasons) and I come from a different cultural background. I was living in the fanciest part of town you could live in. This was really cool. My first job and to have a lovely apartment was a great deal. I was living close to a market and the Hungarian Parliament, so that was pretty cool. Especially Hungary in Summer is insanely beautiful and people are engaging in different activities: Red Bull racing show, Sziget Music Festival, where you can listen to bands like Mumford & Sons among others.
The learning curve at work was precisely what I was expected. Did I see this as a career to fully involve myself in? No. The content was very dry. A clear No. When I learnt everything and saw there was no new topic relevant to me, I decided to move on in my career.
Chapter 3: Life is all about coincidences. Did I mention that?
My dad is the best salesperson existing on the planet Earth.
From every conversation, you learn so much!!! He made a lot of good connections and once at a fair was offered to invest in Indonesia real estate - that’s how he decided to open a resort in Bali. I have never been there and I was against this decision. I didn’t know enough to judge. What I knew is that Bali is a big grey zone that has something to do with corruption and foggy legal circumstances.
Now looking back I am thrilled that he opened a resort. I signed up to bring the hotel to life and moved to Bali for 1.5 years. Together with my father I took part in all negotiations with farmers to lease land and government bodies and learnt everything from scratch: from legal paperwork to construction work to sales and marketing. I learned how to open a business, what to pay attention to, how to do bookkeeping, how to look for real estate option, how to negotiate, how to draw to do groundwork, build a foundation, follow up on construction work, calculate and estimate cost and the list goes on and on and on...
I lived in Bali which was beautiful itself.
Our 4 * Resort in Ubud is one of our biggest achievements. It is a part of the jungle and pure nature, something I feel very attracted to. Late 2020 we will expand to build 8 more pool villas or build a new resort, we are not sure yet.
But all good things come to an end, just like in that Julia Roberts Movie, “Eat, Pray, Love”, once the resort was up and running smoothly, I left Bali for new adventures.
I had a dilemma and fear: How do I explain my transition from KPMG to an unrelated industry?
I was not sure about the answer and felt the calling to pursue a Master Degree in something I truly have a passion for and applied to a small town UK university (top 5 in the UK) for an Economics and Applied Statistics / Data Science Program. I absolutely loved it: this is what you feel when you do Master program with passion. I ended up receiving a fully paid PhD offer at the end of it (which I declined because the city was too small to spend 3 to 4 years in it)
I did simple processes in R for our resort to analyze who our best customers are, and I wanted to be able to do more and to use available data smartly.
To be able to perform at school and at work, I had to distract myself. That’s when my hobbies were a real help. Apart from tennis, I hike actively in the mountains & engage myself in landscape photography. I am learning how to edit pictures & movies. What would you say?
I also started travelling. My first trips were to Sri Lanka and Oman – so beautiful and so diverse. I just booked my flight to Georgia and my 2 dream destinations are Iceland with Russia. While travelling I started applying for Sales / Consulting jobs related to data analytics & data warehouse in Germany, the UK, Dubai, Sweden. I got 6-7 job offers from 3 countries but only one caught my attention.
Why have I received so many offers? Because I changed my strategy.
Now I used quality over quantity instead of applying like a machine to all applications
I took the whole day to nail the cover letter on the job posting.
I work at an amazing company right now and I am a consultant. From the first interview, I felt good. Cintellic it is a small consultancy focused on data analytics. 1st I had a phone interview, then 2nd interview was in person in Frankfurt with HR and direct manager. The 3rd interview was with a co-owner. It was very casual (Indian restaurant) to see if I am a good fit to meet customers in person. Usually these casual talks for consultancies that are focused on small to middle size enterprises play a big role.
I am assigned to an account in the insurance sector now. We are dealing with a data set of 30 to 50 million lines. Excel and Tableau cannot manage that, that is extremely useless, which is why we build our own Dataware house and use SQL and SAS to manage data sets.
Why I chose Germany out of all countries and this offer out of all companies in particular:
Salary
Holidays (30 paid holiday days per year excluding public holidays)
Legal Framework (contract is very good)
Location and infrastructure
Germany has a shortage of qualified labour
Company is located in Bonn and they have a shared office in Frankfurt and we can use any of the design offices in the whole of Germany.
Transportation is fast and reliable; I can be located anywhere. I am located where my client is during the week. And weekends I spend back home with my family in Munich
Pluses and minuses of being a consultant
A steep learning curve with moving from one project to the next
Good opportunity to make money by side
Travelling (a lot) this can be both good and bad. They send you where you have no friends so that you can dedicate yourself fully to work (and sport)
You work far more than written in your contract.
When you travel it is considered your "free time" so you have to be efficient
New job offers, constantly.
My goal: for the next few years is to create a passive income from real estate, as I am interested in investment towards Indonesia. I want to build real estate there. I believe a villa in Bali is a much more sound and solid investment than real estate in Germany.
It is not for everybody, of course, but not everybody is my client. I am trying to involve my brother to work with me on this, he is working in Frankfurt in the financial sector and has incredible knowledge. Let’s see how that goes. I do believe, that we are on the right track (looking back).
Wish us luck!
Recommended by me reading for you. Read these books, you won’t regret. They help you shape your mind and set future goals!
