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What kind of industry is your company/organisation a part of?

Powercare provides temporary workers (doctors, nurses, midwives, social and health care graduates) for the entire health sector in Denmark, Norway, the Faroe Islands and Greenland.

What type of tasks do you perform?

I analyze the business and its work processes. I translate this into requirement specifications for a new large booking system, which the company must switch to.
I do typical Product Owner tasks. In addition, I also automate work processes via RPA (Robotic Process Automation), which are small robots that you code to perform work on computers. The robots take over the repetitive and boring tasks in the office, giving the employees more time to do value-creating work.

It is also this technology that I teach (in my own company). I have an agreement with Powercare that I can occasionally take time off and then go out and teach at the Danish Technological Institute (Aarhus / KBH) or elsewhere in the country. I have made all my teaching material from scratch. I teach myself to 5-20 students at a time, many of whom could be my parents.I also teach at ERFA groups, hold webinars and the like.

What has your career path looked like until now?

I had a hard time landing a job at first, and was actually unemployed for six months. All the companies I came out to wished I had work experience.

At my first job, I was thrown into large client projects that were still unmanageable for me for the first few months. But when I came across RPA (Robotics Process Automation), my career took off, and I now have great project responsibility within IT, can code many programs all by myself, and have my teaching business.

What is your typical workday like?

I map work processes and make requirement specifications for new features in the company's new IT system. In addition, I also make small robots that automate much of the trivial work that exists in the company.

I perform various project management tasks in connection with the new IT system, e.g. planning, prioritization, presentations, design of infrastructure.

What motivates you?

To gain more knowledge and teach.
I love having aha experiences when I've been dealing with a topic for a while. And if I can convey that aha experience so that it's easy to eat to an audience, then my day will peak completely.

What is the most important learning in your working life so far?

Your boss/manager has more influence on your health than your doctor. I have seen many managers who focus so much on efficiency and micro management that they forget ordinary human aspects.

It results in inefficient work and ultimately terminations.

How do you use your education and AAU professionalism in your work?

I learned a lot about communication and dissemination during my bachelor's degree. I use this today in my teaching, as well as when I present - whether it is on Teams, in front of management or a department at Powercare.

Furthermore, I use almost every module I learned in IT management every single day. Digitization, business understanding, coding, project management and working with 'resistance to change'. And it has been a huge gift that the teachers at IT management forced us to make so many exam papers (around 65) in Powerpoint. Today, this makes me super good at knitting together some exciting Powerpoint presentations for any audience.

What made you want to study in Denmark, and why did you choose AAU?

I chose Aalborg University because it felt very down to earth and many of my friends went to Aalborg. I had always heard good things about Aalborg, so it felt very natural for me to go there (from Galten, outside Aarhus).

What made you choose your specific programme?

I chose communication as I have always known that communicating difficult/not-easy-to-eat topics was interesting to me. However, I learned during my bachelor's degree that communication alone was not enough - you also need a relevant topic to communicate about. Therefore, I took the master's degree in IT management, as IT has always been interesting to me, and the candidate seemed really ambitious.

Your favorite memory from AAU?

It must probably be the Friday bars and the study environment in general. A lot was done so that students could meet for a beer or extracurricular activities after their studies, and especially on Fridays it was just wonderful to sit down around a table and enjoy some cold beers with your fellow students.

Aalborg is also the perfect size as a student city - not too big, not too small.

Your career advice for students and recent graduates when they enter the job market?

If your applications don't pay off for a month or two, change strategy. Otherwise, you will go completely dead in it.

And if you come for a job interview but you don't get the job, treat yourself to a good dinner anyway. A "failed" job interview can get everyone in the coal cellar, and a little self-indulgence can get many quickly back on the horse.

With the knowledge and insight you have today, what advice would you give yourself if you were to start studying at AAU?

A practical advice would be: "Make sure you sign up for an apartment as soon as possible" :-)

Daniel Søgaard Jensen on LinkedIn