Luke O’Keeffe is a graduate of BSc (Hons) in Architectural and Building Information Modelling (BIM) Technology from Waterford Institute of Technology and works as a Project Manager with GagaMuller Group. He put together a post about his experiences as part of our team since joining in May 2020.
Watch the full interview:
Luke's story
I met the CEO’s at CiTA BIM gathering in 2019. I was invited to speak at the gathering about my achievements and experience at the World Skills competition earlier in the year.
At this event I was part of a team that represented Ireland competing in the BIM category. This was a challenging competition to be part of, but a very rewarding experience as the three-day event cumulated in us winning the competition.
From chatting to Paddy and Thomas after the CitA event they explained the company’s vision and that they are recruiting a high-performance team and that even as graduate, GagaMuller Group would help me to develop and unlock my potential.
Naturally the challenge of adapting from college lecture rooms to the real world can be difficult however the support from all team members has made it easier. I think that is down to the approach that the company brings towards the challenges faced in the construction industry. Joining as a graduate, you must be ready to push back against the norm in the industry and not just go with the flow, you are expected to develop new ways of working with both process and technology to solve these challenges.
Since joining, I have been able to work on projects in several sectors such as Data Centres, Pharmaceutical and Residential across multiple countries in Europe. Every week provides a new challenge but accomplishing these is extremely rewarding. It has allowed me to develop my professional and personal skillsets a lot quicker than I would have expected in other roles.
As part of my current role, I liaise with the client to discuss the progress on numerous aspects of the project, including items such as the BIM Coordination process and the construction schedule development and execution. There is a large degree of independence provided by the role, this means being self-motivated to manage my own day to day task.
However, I always have the support of the team for any advice or to carry workshops to resolve issue that occur.
During my first few months, I got opportunity to work abroad in the Netherlands as part of a wider GagaMuller Group team. We were working on a Data Centre Project in the city of Groningen. Working in another country provided different challenges that you would not encounter in Ireland, this was only heightened due to the Pandemic at the time. As a graduate, obstacles such as language barriers and cultural difference provided an additional challenge to adapt to, but overcoming these challenges and working with the team abroad made it a great experience and one that I would recommend to anyone.
I’m now working from our office in Dublin and for me the modern office that we have is one of the biggest benefits with working with the company, each workspace has a standing desk and multiple screens, and this really helps when collaborating with your team members. We also have access to latest software and equipment allowing us to leverage the most from our projects.
At a personal level, there are great mentoring and support networks in the company, and they provide you with a plan for developing your career. At a social level, there are always events being organised. One of my favourite ones was the hike we did as a team in Howth (Ireland), great experience to do with colleagues outside of work.
I would recommend GagaMuller Group to other students graduating college as it is a young dynamic company that has a different approach to solving problems in the construction industry. Everyone in the team is approachable and they will back you to unlocking your potential and allowing you to advance your own career.
Visit our Graduate Programme page to find out more about the programme: https://bit.ly/3oWCOUP