Blog

My best advice

18 Mar. 2026

By Julie Graham, Ingeus CEO of Employment Services. 
 
As we see every day at Ingeus, good advice can be life changing. Given wisely, it compresses decades of learning and experience into valuable insights to help people navigate next steps with less uncertainty. Whether it’s given by a subject specialist, family member, friend, or colleague, the wisdom of those who have been there before can help and empower you to take responsibility and avoid mistakes.  
 
While some people can pinpoint a single piece of advice that had a significant effect on their lives, I didn’t have that breakthrough moment. I’ve come to see that good advice rarely arrives as a neat set of instructions. It is a starting point for change and sits alongside building instinct, judgement, and self-awareness – and those skills are learnt by doing. 
 
Growing up on an Australian farm, my strong work ethic and get-stuck-in attitude comes directly from my parents. Being organised and learning to prioritise was forged working in the fast-paced world of McDonalds, funding my way through university. A career helping others was set the day a participant returned with a bunch of flowers to tell me how I’d changed his life. 
This is self-advice in action. These lessons have stuck with me much more powerfully than anyone’s wise words to work hard, make a to-do-list, or work in employability.  
 
FOLLOWING MY OWN ADVICE 
Ask my school teachers and they would have predicted me a career in science; my mum would have loved me to become a nurse. For some time, I trod the middle ground, studying to become a dietician.  Moving into a management role whilst at McDonalds, I worked closely with a local agent placing people with disabilities into employment with us.  
I discovered the employability sector and unwittingly changed my life.  
Time as a frontline employment advisor followed, supporting people with learning disabilities to learn new trades, followed by several leadership steps. Roll on 30 years to my 2021 move across the world to take up my current role here at Ingeus.   
 
MY THREE TAKEAWAYS   
Don’t judge: No matter what my career, I hope I wouldn’t have been a judgmental person but working with participants from vastly different backgrounds genuinely teaches you to be open minded. You listen well and in order to give good advice and suggest solutions, have to think about situations from a different perspective. Finding what’s important to different people, finding common ground, is wider than employability – it’s a valuable piece of advice for anyone.  
 
Learn new things: I purposely surround myself with people I can learn from. I’ve always taken cues from people I respect: family, colleagues, even people in the public eye, and have continued my professional development throughout my career. When looking for a mentor for a leadership programme I undertook in Australia, I was given a great piece of advice: choose someone who’s good at something you’re not – yet. I chose the CEO of the local council – she was an incredibly articulate presenter, quick on her feet to respond to questioning and I learnt so much from her.  
 
Accept that things go wrong: In testing new routes you’ll hit the odd blockade. Pick your battles, accept that things sometimes go awry, and learn from it. Resilience is a big part of developing your working life.   
 
MY THREE PIECES OF ADVICE 
Seize new opportunities: They may be beyond your comfort zone – think moving 9,000 miles during Covid – but you’ll learn so much from them.  
Be true to yourself: Find what interests and motivates you. Self-awareness is key when making career decisions.  
Love what you do: You spend a lot of time at work and you’ve got to be able to enjoy it. From burger flipping to advice giving, find the good in what you do and do it the best you can. 
 
Good advice is valuable, but don’t take my word for it – try it for yourself.