- December 15th, 2016|
- by gradconsult|
- For Students,Work Experience
- |Applications,careers,Christmas,coaching,CV,law,students,university,work experience
It is hard to believe that a week could go so fast, but unfortunately it has. I have enjoyed my week here at Gradconsult immensely, and not just because of the free lunches! All the team were lovely, and I really got to know the fun side of office life. The office is in a large building, and the room itself has a fun blackboard wall for people to write their ideas and inspiring quotes, and now it has my wonderful Christmas tree on too. As well as helping the team with the day-to-day running of the business, I have also taken charge of the Christmas E-card, the Lending Library and this blog.
Chikka was my main point of contact for my work experience and she made sure I knew what I was doing before my arrival, with a detailed plan of my week and all the particulars I would need about the office sent to me. On the Monday, we sat down and went through a few things about what I wanted to do after I left Uni, to which I told her that I hadn’t got any idea what so ever! She then directed me to do a "personality test", which was quick and enjoyable and gave me a place in which to start learning about the careers that I would be best suited too. It turns out that my personality type is accurate for my course at University – which is lucky I suppose, since I sort of fell into studying Law after not much thought at 6th form.
It was then time for filming the first take of the E-Christmas card. I was told that I would be the director, and that I could do whatever I wanted – which is a bit daunting when you have 5 professionals staring at you, waiting for instructions! I started by drawing a Christmas tree, which is brilliant if I do say so myself (see picture!).
After learning more about the company itself, I then had my one of many free lunches (thanks Gabi), and got back down to the work. My task was to document the books in the ‘Lending Library’ into an Excel worksheet, which would enable people in the future to find out if a book had been lent out, to whom, and for how long.
On Tuesday, it was time to start editing the Christmas card. With a basic idea of what we wanted to be in it, I started cutting the video into sections, speeding bits up and slowing bits down, as well as trying to cut a Santa hat out on Paint – which was pretty frustrating when I haven’t used Paint in 10 years! Eventually I finished editing, and it was ready to send out. If you haven’t already seen it, you can find it on the twitter page or here.
Next up was a coaching session with Mike. This gave me an insight into what recruiters look for in an application, and quick and simple things that I can do to make my application stand out above the rest. We then went through some video interviews for applications at Gradconsult, which showed me the difference between a really good example and one that was not so good. This was interesting as I had never experienced a video interview before, and it gave me an insight into the things that recruiters look for during these videos.
After this, I attempted to start writing this blog. As I’ve never written a blog before, I really did not know where to start. Looking at examples, I sat down and started writing down things I had done every day, which I probably should have started on Monday – but what do I know about writing blogs? Hopefully this isn’t too bad for my first one.
This week really showed me the other side of job applications, the most common mistakes to make on CV’s and applications, and how simple things really can improve an application. This will help me greatly when it comes to applying for jobs and courses after I graduate.
Lastly, I would like to thank all Rebecca and all staff at Gradconsult, I had a great week and would highly recommend it to anyone.
Maddie.