By Jema Dizdarevic
Why did you decide to do a placement?
While there are many benefits of pursing a year in industry, there were three key reasons which pushed me to secure a placement. Firstly, I saw a placement as the perfect opportunity to boost my CV and open more doors for me in the early stages of my career. Employees recognise the value of a year in experience within the world of work, enabling you to be leaps and bounds ahead of graduates without that invaluable experience. I knew how competitive the graduate market is – pursuing a year in industry would enable me to stand out from the pool of graduates.
The second key reason was the prospect of exploring potential career paths. I perceived a placement as a great opportunity to get hands-on experience, in the corporate environment, to better understand what career pathway I’d like to pursue after my degree. Equally, a placement would allow me to evaluate if a certain kind of company suits my own careers goals.
Thirdly, I found a year in industry as a chance to discover skills relevant to my career, that I couldn’t necessarily grasp at university. I knew a year in industry would be the perfect way to figure out what particular skills were most valued in my field of work and also build on my confidence. By honing these skills, I knew I’d become a well-rounded individual that is attractive to future employers.
What was the application process like?
For the Commercial internship at Dyson, I found the application process straight forward – a three-stage process. Initially, after finding the vacancy on Linkedln, the first stage consisted of sending in my CV and completing questions as to why I best suited the role and what interested me about working for an international technology company. Shortly after, I processed through the video interview of the application, which involved pre-recorded questions, which were either personality, situational or problem-solving based. A couple months later, I received a call to find I had made it to the final stage of the application process, where I was set a work brief 24-hours prior my final interview to complete. During the interview, I was asked to present my work brief and answer some further behavioural, situational and career foal orientated type questions.
Looking back, I was able to take onboard every experience and learning from my previous interviews with other internships – I felt confident going into the final interview.
Can you tell us a bit more about your specific role and the skills you have learnt?
During my year at Dyson, as a Commercial intern, I have worked in E-commerce, in the Direct and Digital team, pushing global strategy and leading projects across social commerce, marketplace, digital retail and direct. Undertaking a corporate role, I have had the opportunity to build on three key skills; data analysis, leadership and communication. For instance, as my role as a Dyson Live shopping analyst, I have explored and developed my data analytical skills – drawing on key performance indicators and learnings from our markets events. I’d then take the opportunity present these key takeaways, on a global scale during, our by-weekly meetings, exercising my presenting skills on a wider stage.
On a more personal development level, I’ve had the chance to gain new data analytical qualifications, in Google Analytics and Decibel, finding opportunities as to where we can better our websites pages. On a day-to-day basis, I would develop and build on my leadership skills, on projects I have been a key stakeholder on, using our team catch-ups to set-out meeting outcomes, align the team and define deliverables.
From leading a project to launch new digital assets, globally, on our websites, to working with Meta to transform social commerce on Facebook and Instagram, to partnering with TikTok official, to lead a global masterclass – I have truly had a well-rounded experience!
What are you most looking forward to when you come back to UEA to do your final year?
After spending there year in the working industry, I am super excited to take onboard everything I have learnt and apply to my studies. More specifically, I am thrilled to continue the routine and mindset I established during the year – I thoroughly enjoyed allocating my time more efficiently and I think this will have a positive uplift in my studies.
Perhaps more importantly, after spending the year developing and building on my soft skills, I am looking forward to employing these skills throughout my assessments, including both individual and teamwork; I feel super confident to lead a team!
What advice would you offer to students for a placement?
After applying to over 60 internships and ultimately achieving my dream placement, there are three top pieces of advice I suggest to students:
- Use this year to explore potential career pathways – the job doesn’t necessary have to be something you end up pursing permanently after university – experiment!
- Perseverance! Don’t give up after the first couple of rejections – rejections only allowed me to learn from my mistakes and build my confidence future interviews.
- Enjoy the process! I found it super interesting learning about different roles related to the field of work I wanted to pursue and different companies!