My name is Jacob and during my recent week at work experience, I spent five days with SpiderGroup. For the week, I spent time with multiple different departments throughout the company, learning about each one, and watching how they work with the business as a whole.
Although at first, I was nervous about the week, I found that everyone there was welcoming and helpful, and compared to my expectations, work experience was a less threatening opportunity than I would have thought before I started.
Each experience gave me new thoughts on how I would like to move forward as a person eventually into my career.
At my school, all year ten students are expected to spend one week at work experience. This means that they are all meant to find an opportunity for that week of work and then spend a week working with a company, preferably one which aligns with their interests for a future career.
When I was told about this work experience, I knew that I wanted to work for a company which involves technology, but other than that, I had no idea what I wanted to do for the week.
After finding an opportunity with SpiderGroup, the week of work experience eventually came around, leaving me clueless as to what would happen that week.
I arrived at the office and met James, who guided me around for the first day, explaining to me the basics and showing me where to go.
Although initially, I was nervous about starting the week, I soon realised that the whole concept of work was much less threatening than I had originally anticipated before beginning the week. I soon felt quite settled within the company as I began learning about different departments and areas of the business, of which many aligned with my interests and possible future career paths.
Spending time with different departments gave me insight into how the business works as a whole.
The first day involved shadowing James as he attended online meetings and worked on fixing bugs in a database system that he had developed, explaining how the system worked and how it allowed their client to use it easily.
On the second day, I worked with the digital team as they used Chat-GPT to help create targeted blog articles for specific customers. Seeing how artificial intelligence was used for purposes such as this gave me an appreciation for technology such as this.
After the AI generated a basic example for the blog, it was edited, optimised and improved for readability, whilst also checking and proofreading it.
Afterwards, I was tasked with writing the introduction for this blog, before heading home at the end of the busy day.
On day three I worked with the operations department, where I learnt about the communication and software at the heart of the company, which allowed for effective working throughout the business.
From CRM to internal communication, time management and scheduling, they seemed to have had a system for everything they could have needed. After this, I helped to fill in some details for a spreadsheet of customer information found with Companies House, which would allow them to better analyse their operations and interactions with customers. After some work on the spreadsheet, I continued with writing the blog content.
On the fourth day I spent at work experience, I shadowed the team as they worked to help customers resolve their issues, watching all the steps and processes involved with technical customer support. I also spent some more time with the operations department, being introduced to more systems that the business used for effective working and communication.
On the fifth and last day at SpiderGroup, I attended a meeting with the sales manager. During this insightful session, I gained valuable knowledge on how the company can enhance its customer presentations, effectively demonstrating their ability to guide customers towards their desired goals and meet their specific needs. We also learnt about how LinkedIn and Sales Navigator could be used to also increase sales and awareness of your business, and how the two systems differed in their purpose.
With my time spread across all these different departments and areas of the business, I had a chance to watch and learn how each part of the business functioned and more importantly, how they all functioned together with the technology, systems and software that is used within SpiderGroup.
The experiences were different from what I expected, but each day was positive and taught me many things about the business and work in general. With all the information I learnt it could feel slightly overwhelming at points, but everyone was more than willing to answer my questions and queries about the company.
Ultimately, Work Experience should provide you with an insight into possible career choices, which I believe my week at work experience did.
Working with all the departments gave me suggestions for many paths I could take in my future, and although I still do not know what sort of job I will work in my future, I now have the foresight of what I have experienced during this week.
Overall, I feel that my experience was great over the whole week at SpiderGroup, each day was a positive experience for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.