Inside the North America Graduate Program

What is it like to join Steer as a graduate?

Steer’s graduate program is at the heart of our international operation. Each year, a select intake of bright and talented graduates receive unparalleled opportunities for training and career advancement.

Steer shapes regions and communities through our expertise in transport, energy, and sustainability, and our work is more important now than ever. With this in mind, we are looking to hire a fresh crop of early-career consultants who want to build on their existing skills and grow within a dynamic organization.

Situated in either our Planning or Advisory business units, our North American grads learn from the best, gain access to high-quality insights from senior colleagues, and have the opportunity to work on international projects with our teams in Latin America, Europe, and South Asia.

Lenya Schmidt-Neuhaus and Matthew Capuano-Rizzo, who joined our graduate program in September 2023, tell us about their time at Steer so far.

What have you learned on the Steer grad scheme?

Lenya

I've learned a lot on the grad scheme from both a technical skill perspective and also just general consulting and networking skills. Senior leadership is paying a lot of attention to us, and I think it's really easy to connect with those people through training, general discussions, and project work.

My background was mainly sustainability-focused, so I was really hoping to gain more knowledge and insight into the world of transportation planning and different forms of urban planning. Now, I already feel like I have a much better understanding of the field and what infrastructure planning actually requires.

There's been a big focus on different kinds of training like Excel modeling skills, network modeling and different kinds of report writing skills. Looking back at when I was started in September versus now I think have come a long way in those different technical aspects, I’ve enjoyed gaining the technical skills to support my interest in sustainability.

Matthew

One of the first things we were told shortly after joining was that good consulting is picking up the phone and calling people. We’ve been encouraged not to be intimidated by problems that we don't know how to solve. Instead of being overwhelmed by ourselves, we problem-solve as a team. That's how I've been able to learn a lot of the skills required for the job. I feel like every day, I'm being asked to do something that, at first, I don't know how to do, and then I become an expert by the end of the week.

I think that with a lot of jobs coming out of school, they expect you to either know everything or know nothing. At Steer there is a good middle ground in the sense that like they expect you to come in with some skills, but they also don't expect you to be an expert. They're very happy to take the time to teach new skills- that's something that's really unique because it takes a lot of time and investment on the side of the company.

What kind of mentoring have you received during your time at Steer?

Lenya

I wanted to learn more about the business from a colleague in Boston. I just mentioned my background—I studied chemistry and environmental justice—and she made me think about how I could apply that to a topic relevant to Steer.

Thanks to the discussion with that mentor, we came up with the idea of presenting a topic for a knowledge-sharing session. I presented on the sustainability impacts of electric vehicle (EV) batteries four separate times to teams in the UK and North America. Throughout, my colleagues really pushed me to build on my presentation skills, look at the topic that I'd be interested in, and share it with a wider audience. I ended up presenting that to over 100 people, and this led to further projects and more people being interested in working with me.

Matthew

The person who's been the most like a mentor is someone in the Los Angeles office. I was working on a project measuring potential demand for an airport connector, and I was the main person responsible for data collection. Throughout the project, this colleague gave me really practical tips on how to analyze data in R, GIS, and Excel. At each step, I would call her, and we would go through it together.

We just submitted the report for that client last week, and it was cool to see the project through to completion. It's exciting to see the real impacts of our work at Steer.

What has been your favorite project you’ve worked on so far?  

Lenya

I've been working on this food access and transportation project in North America, assessing the needs of different communities and how they transit and access better quality food that they can afford, as well as food relevant to their culture.

Just by talking to the client and seeing different focus groups, and better understanding the geography, I think there's some real impact that can be made by the end of this project. I've just really been enjoying the type of work and the outcome that will come from it.

Matthew

Prior to joining Steer, I was very excited by the idea of being part of an international team with international projects. I am currently working on two international projects; one is for a multilateral development bank evaluating the bank's transportation investments, and the second project is for a sports stadium looking at how people access the stadium for an upcoming major sporting event.

What’s your favorite thing about the working culture at Steer?

Lenya

I would say just getting to talk to people who have similar interests. I think I've had a lot of interesting conversations, and I've been able to attend different events outside of Steer with those colleagues. I think it's really the casual conversation aspect and getting to learn more about what opportunities are in the field that interest me most. There’s a lot to learn from a lot of different people.

Matthew

I would say the horizontal structure. I can call senior colleagues, and they will answer whatever questions I have. Sometimes, they'll call me, too, which is exciting because it allows me to learn quickly.

The culture is so open, and you don't have to be afraid if you don't know the answer to a question. Equally, you don't also have to be afraid to ask questions, even in big meetings, you can still ask questions and people will answer.