Graduate Career Accelerator - OnlineThe Icarus Manoeuvre
Graduate Career Accelerator
One day. Eight hours.
Everything you need to know to start your career the right way.
Next Session: 30 July 2026 · 09:00 - 17:30 UK · Online
Led by Carl McCann, BSc MBA MIMechE - former RAF Wing Commander, VP and EMEA Senior Leadership Team Board member, and Chief of Staff EMEA at DXC Technology.
Graduates who are about to start their first corporate role, have recently started and are already sensing the gap between what they studied and what the corporate world actually expects, or are still looking for the right role and want to walk into the process with a genuine advantage.
Not a motivation day. Not a CV workshop. Eight hours of honest, practical, experience-led content from someone who has operated at the highest levels of both military command and corporate leadership - and knows exactly what separates the graduates who accelerate from the ones who spend three years figuring it out the hard way.
Who is teaching thisBuilt from 38 years of experience at both extremes.
Carl McCann BSc MBA MIMechE spent nineteen years in the Royal Air Force, loading nuclear weapons during the Cold War and commanding over 250 people on an operational Tornado squadron through the Gulf War.
He then spent nineteen years in senior corporate leadership, rising to Chief of Staff EMEA at DXC Technology - responsible for a region generating $10 billion in annual revenue - and serving as UK and EMEA Board Member. He managed strategic accounts from $200M to $3BN, led four major enterprise transformations and turned around multiple failing contracts.
He also burned out. He knows what the corporate machine costs people - personally, professionally and financially - and he built this programme so that you don't have to learn it the hard way.
The DayEight hours. Seven sessions. One flight plan.
Live online. Structured exercises in breakout groups. You leave with a written plan, not a folder of notes.
| Time | Session | What you will cover |
|---|---|---|
| 08:50 | Join the session | Tech check, introductions. |
| 09:00 - 09:20 | Opening: The world you have just entered | How the corporate world actually works versus how you think it works. The unwritten rules nobody tells you. Why performance alone is rarely enough. What your employer is actually watching for from day one and what most graduates completely misread. |
| 09:20 - 10:20 | Session 1: Finding and landing the right role | How to identify organisations and roles that match your strengths and ambitions - not just the ones that accept you. What interviewers are actually looking for beneath the competency questions. How to present yourself as someone already thinking at the next level. Salary negotiation at offer stage and why most graduates accept the first number they are given and what to do instead. How to evaluate an offer beyond the salary figure. Exercise: identify your target organisations, draft your personal value proposition and prepare the opening line of your salary negotiation. |
| 10:20 - 10:35 | Break | |
| 10:35 - 11:35 | Session 2: Me PLC - owning your career from day one | Treat your career like a business from the moment you start. Career strategy, personal brand and visibility - the three things that separate graduates who get promoted in eighteen months from graduates who wait three to five years. The talent programme story. Why the person with a written five-year plan consistently beats the person without one. Exercise: first draft of your five-year career plan, in the room, shared in breakout groups of three. |
| 11:35 - 12:15 | Session 3: The unwritten rules and organisational politics | Power structures, decision-making hierarchies and how things actually get decided. Who to know, who to trust and who to be cautious of. How to build allies without being seen as political. The conversations that accelerate careers and the conversations that end them, often before a graduate realises either is happening. Exercise: map the organisation you are joining or targeting and work out who holds real influence, where the decisions get made and where you need to be visible. |
| 12:15 - 13:00 | Lunch | |
| 13:00 - 13:45 | Session 4: Mentors, sponsors and the relationships that move careers | The difference between a mentor and a sponsor and why most people invest in the wrong one. What a sponsor actually does that a mentor cannot. How to identify potential mentors and sponsors, how to approach them and how to make the relationship work from the very beginning of your career. Exercise: identify two potential mentors and one potential sponsor in your target organisation or industry and draft your approach. |
| 13:45 - 14:30 | Session 5: Understanding the money | How businesses make and lose money. What a P&L is and why it matters to you even if your role has nothing to do with finance. Reading a forecast. Why financial literacy separates graduates who progress from graduates who plateau and how to develop it before anyone asks you to. Exercise: work through a simplified P&L scenario in breakout pairs - read the numbers, identify the story behind them and present it back. |
| 14:30 - 14:45 | Break | |
| 14:45 - 15:30 | Session 6: Difficult conversations and executive presence | The conversations most graduates avoid until they become crises and how to have them early. Delivering bad news upward. Disagreeing with a senior person without damaging the relationship. What executive presence actually means at graduate level and how to develop it deliberately rather than waiting for seniority to bring it. Exercise: difficult conversation role play in breakout pairs - one upward with a line manager, one with a peer. |
| 15:30 - 15:45 | Break | |
| 15:45 - 16:30 | Session 7: Knowing your value and protecting your wellbeing | Your market rate from day one. Why the salary you accept at offer stage compounds across your entire career. When and how to negotiate. The early signs of pressure becoming unsustainable and how to manage them before they become a crisis. Building habits that sustain performance over a career, not just over a quarter. Exercise: research your market rate, identify the gap if one exists and draft the conversation you will have at your six-month review. |
| 16:30 - 17:15 | Closing session: Your personal flight plan | Every participant builds their personal flight plan live: a one-page five-year career plan, a personal brand statement in three sentences, two mentor targets and one sponsor target with approach strategy, the three specific things they will do differently in their first ninety days, and one conversation they will have in the next thirty days that most graduates never have. Group share: each participant states one thing they will do differently in the next thirty days. The cohort holds each other accountable. |
| 17:15 - 17:30 | Closing remarks | The Icarus reframe. You have the wings. Today was the flight manual. Q&A. |
| 17:30 | Close |
Tech check, introductions.
How the corporate world actually works versus how you think it works. The unwritten rules nobody tells you. Why performance alone is rarely enough. What your employer is actually watching for from day one and what most graduates completely misread.
How to identify organisations and roles that match your strengths and ambitions - not just the ones that accept you. What interviewers are actually looking for beneath the competency questions. How to present yourself as someone already thinking at the next level. Salary negotiation at offer stage and why most graduates accept the first number they are given and what to do instead. How to evaluate an offer beyond the salary figure. Exercise: identify your target organisations, draft your personal value proposition and prepare the opening line of your salary negotiation.
Treat your career like a business from the moment you start. Career strategy, personal brand and visibility - the three things that separate graduates who get promoted in eighteen months from graduates who wait three to five years. The talent programme story. Why the person with a written five-year plan consistently beats the person without one. Exercise: first draft of your five-year career plan, in the room, shared in breakout groups of three.
Power structures, decision-making hierarchies and how things actually get decided. Who to know, who to trust and who to be cautious of. How to build allies without being seen as political. The conversations that accelerate careers and the conversations that end them, often before a graduate realises either is happening. Exercise: map the organisation you are joining or targeting and work out who holds real influence, where the decisions get made and where you need to be visible.
The difference between a mentor and a sponsor and why most people invest in the wrong one. What a sponsor actually does that a mentor cannot. How to identify potential mentors and sponsors, how to approach them and how to make the relationship work from the very beginning of your career. Exercise: identify two potential mentors and one potential sponsor in your target organisation or industry and draft your approach.
How businesses make and lose money. What a P&L is and why it matters to you even if your role has nothing to do with finance. Reading a forecast. Why financial literacy separates graduates who progress from graduates who plateau and how to develop it before anyone asks you to. Exercise: work through a simplified P&L scenario in breakout pairs - read the numbers, identify the story behind them and present it back.
The conversations most graduates avoid until they become crises and how to have them early. Delivering bad news upward. Disagreeing with a senior person without damaging the relationship. What executive presence actually means at graduate level and how to develop it deliberately rather than waiting for seniority to bring it. Exercise: difficult conversation role play in breakout pairs - one upward with a line manager, one with a peer.
Your market rate from day one. Why the salary you accept at offer stage compounds across your entire career. When and how to negotiate. The early signs of pressure becoming unsustainable and how to manage them before they become a crisis. Building habits that sustain performance over a career, not just over a quarter. Exercise: research your market rate, identify the gap if one exists and draft the conversation you will have at your six-month review.
Every participant builds their personal flight plan live: a one-page five-year career plan, a personal brand statement in three sentences, two mentor targets and one sponsor target with approach strategy, the three specific things they will do differently in their first ninety days, and one conversation they will have in the next thirty days that most graduates never have. Group share: each participant states one thing they will do differently in the next thirty days. The cohort holds each other accountable.
The Icarus reframe. You have the wings. Today was the flight manual. Q&A.
InvestmentOne day. One decision. The right start.
Eight hours live with Carl. Maximum 20 places. Full session recording included.
Next session: 30 July 2026
Group or cohort pricing for 3+ participants - email carl@icarusmanoeuvre.com
Frequently asked questions
The next session runs 30 July 2026.
Twenty places. One day. The right way to start your career.
Maximum 20 places · Next session 30 July 2026 · 09:00 - 17:30 UK · Online via Zoom
Questions? Email carl@icarusmanoeuvre.com or connect on LinkedIn