From Paras to Arnold Clark Head Office

For five years, Scott served in the Parachute Regiment.

During his time in the Paras, Scott travelled the world, visiting Northern Ireland, Kenya and Canada. For the last 18 months of his service, he worked as a Physical Training Instructor, leading fitness-based classes including arrest and restraint training. The sessions would help maintain and enhance the fitness of a regiment that was made up of approximately 600 soldiers.

Then, when he left the forces, he attended university as a mature student. After he gained his BA in Recreation Management, Scott began his civilian job search. But despite his wealth of skills, experience and academic achievement, he found it surprisingly challenging. A lot of the recruiters he encountered pigeonholed ex-forces candidates.

He didn’t give up, and his determination eventually won him a role in car sales. He worked for another motor dealer for 7 years before starting his career at Arnold Clark. He maintains that in sales, previous experience really isn’t necessary. But his great transferable skills and personality traits were. In his words: ‘To be successful you just have to be organised, disciplined and have a good attitude’.

And while some of Scott’s colleagues found the showroom floor too pressurised and the hours too long, after the Paras, Scott took it all in his stride. Although he did a few courses with GTG Training as he progressed his career, he found that it was his soft skills; namely his personality that was the catalyst for his success. Scott thinks there’s a lot of crossover between Arnold Clark and the military – both are meritocratic endeavours that reward talent, discipline and hard work.

It paid off. He became one of the top salespeople in his branch, then progressed to a managerial position at Arnold Clark’s Seafield Motorstore, which, during his tenure, became one of the best-performing branches. He then worked as an Operations Manager for Motorstore, before progressing to become Fiat Franchise Manager. He settled into his most recent role, Group Training and Development Manager, in November 2016.

Scott would encourage any recruiter to consider employing people leaving the forces, because, as in his case, their skills are so transferable. Perhaps not always on paper, but in practice. As he puts it: ‘Put them on the field and let them score you some goals’. Give them a chance, he urges, and the results will speak for themselves.