VERY occasionally, when flicking through a CV, something interesting jumps out from the page which makes prospective employers sit up and take notice.
When James Kinney, resource and new-business manager with Aberdeen-based firm Altra Energy, presents his CV, the content is so interesting that, at times, he has difficulty getting interviewers to stop talking about it.
That’s because his career was kick started when he signed for Manchester City’s youth team.
“I grew up in Warrington, an industrial area, where football was something of an escape,” said James, 27, who lives in Inverurie with his partner, Kelly, eight-year-old daughter Charley, and nine-month-old son Jaeden.
“I was a huge football fan. Eric Cantona was my hero, while Alex Ferguson reminded me of my dad.”
His skills saw him play for a number of major clubs from the ages of 12 to 18, including Crewe and Manchester City, but after receiving a bad tackle, his playing career was given the red card.
“I was 18 and doing FA and Uefa sports courses at the time. My friends were going off to university, but that wasn’t something that interested me at the time.
“By chance, I met a coach I’d worked with at Man City who asked if I’d like to coach football in America – it took about three seconds for me to say yes.
“I spent three years there working in more than 20 states and had wonderful experiences, including being invited along to the Jerry Springer show, where I met him and had my photograph taken with him, which was amazing.
“We were ambassadors for the sport as our role was selling football to the US.
“I had to be very focused, disciplined and organised, all of which helped with the careers I have since followed.”
Although enjoying life Stateside, a desire to make a difference to people’s lives saw him apply to join Greater Manchester Police during a trip home to renew his visa.
“They couldn’t believe I wanted to give up what seemed to be a dream job to join the force, but they could see I was determined.
“As a coach, I was used to giving instruction and dealing with large groups of people, all of which helped.”
He spent three years with the police, based in Wigan, and at one point had the highest arrest rate.
“For the last year, I was a plain-clothes officer in a proactive unit involved in drug busts and serious organised crime,” said James.
“The hours were very long and it felt like I was never seeing my family.
“As I had achieved what I set out to do, I felt the time was right for a career change so, following advice from a friend, I moved into recruitment.”
This led to working for an agency which specialised in recruiting engineers for the oil and gas industry and, in turn, to his meeting Altra’s managing director, Danny McGowan, as he recruited several engineers for him, along with other Aberdeen and worldwide clients.
“I was impressed with Danny’s positive attitude so wanted to get the best people possible for the job,” said James, who nurtured relationships and studied the needs of the oil and gas industry as a whole.
Meanwhile, Danny was impressed with James and, on learning he was set to join a firm in Qatar, offered him a job heading up recruitment and assisting with business development for the Aberdeen-headquartered consultancy.
“I didn’t need to think twice,” said James.
“I completely believed in Altra and where the company was going.”
After working from home in Warrington for nine months, he moved to Aberdeen in September, 2008.
He said: “Working alone was tough, and it made perfect sense as the business grew that I should be in Aberdeen.”
In April this year, when SLP/Altra Energy won its biggest contract to date with Apache to revitalise the Forties field, James faced his biggest challenge to date – recruiting 50 of the most qualified and experienced engineers in six weeks.
The company is delivering the topside and bridge link for the new platform and is working towards the detailed design work, which will be followed by pre-commissioning and installations, with the completed platform due to produce first oil in the summer of 2012.
“It has been all systems go since we won the Apache contract, with 50 new engineers joining us,” said James.
“I believe we have recruited a multi-disciplined team to be proud of.”
The company has ambitions to grow turnover from £5million to £25million in the next three years and create about 200 new jobs, so James is now working with the management team to develop new business.
Although the father-of-two has already had several interesting careers, he may find himself working in a different field once more as he is set to start a university degree in business management at The Robert Gordon’s University in September.
“If you told me 10 years ago, when I was playing football, that one day I’d go to university, I would never have believed you,” said James.
“Altra Energy has given me the opportunity to take that next step.”