Hello, my name is Daniel and I am a college student currently studying at Saint Francis Xavier College. I am currently studying ICT at Btec Level 3 and I am thankful that the CIPD accepted my request to undertake work experience at this location.
My 2 weeks at my CIPD work experience placement.
I first arrived at the CIPD building pretty early and I’ll admit I was nervous leading up to this day. I was waiting at the reception for about 10mins until I was greeted by Jackie Dedman, she was very friendly towards me and offered to show me and two other individuals a tour of the building. During my tour we got to see the different departments and even the CEO. The complexity of the building shocked me as whichever architect designed this building did an exceptional job. During my tour I was greeted with multiple smiles and hello’s which made me feel very welcome instantly. After the tour I was introduced to the Research department I’d be working alongside during my two weeks at the CIPD. Yet again everyone was extremely welcoming and friendly and this helped ease my nervousness. I was shown my desk and was told to ‘make myself at home’ which in fact I did, I was doing all sorts including adjusting my chair, getting the foot rest up and adjusting the monitor.
Once I had settled in Liz directed me to take a look at the CIPD introduction web where I watched a video and read the information applied. Before I knew it the time was 12:00, everyone had been telling me how good the lunch is so I entered the canteen with a very high expectations….boy was I impressed, the food was amazing and plus it was FREE. I discovered the Coffee machines which also supplied hot chocolate for FREE. Then I decided to check out the ‘Hub’ and I discovered an interview simulator, this was extremely useful because I had a job interview at JD sports right afterwards.
Conversing with individuals about what they do in their areas of expertise
The first person I talked to was Sarah and she told me about her department and how the aim to try and get more people into Hr and how they can help people improve if they are already in HR. Sarah went onto give me some extremely useful information on a website called ‘star profile’. This website gives the user extremely detailed information about any job. For example say I typed up ‘ICT’ it would come up with a list of all the careers related to ICT. Furthermore it will show the average salary, how you can get there, universities offering a course related to it, and organisations hiring for a related position. I really am thankful for the information given to me and I would recommend it to anyone. Later on in the day I talked with Johanna in the social media department and I got to witness what goes on behind the social media pages, I even got to schedule a tweet for the 28th of March!
The next person I spoke to was Jo who was in the podcast team and she explained to me what she does for the CIPD. I created my own idea about the next podcast topic which were ‘Is virtual reality the salvation to young people’s learning?’ and ‘Will mobile phones increase the learning activity within young people?’ Additionally I got to play around with adobe after effects which was fun to do. On two separate days I had a talk with Para who works in the ICT department and I got to discover what they do on a day to day basis and Ed in the research department. He told me what the research department did last year. I discovered that they went to various big organisations and found out what they did with the data they received.
Lastly I met with Turi and he talked to me and showed me what he does for the CIPD. He went on to show me his website at the numerous animations he had had completed for various organisations including the CIPD. Turi then went onto show me these websites called ‘pixi’ ‘phaser’ and ‘three js’ and these websites all help with programming for computer games.
The big day had arrived, the day everyone was looking forward to….THE SPRINT FESTIVAL!! The sprint festival is a ‘chance for you to see the work that has been done by our project and sprint teams over the last few months – and find out how these are helping us to deliver our strategy.’ I got to witness the majority if not all the sprints and my favorite was the customer enquiry department. I got to listen to a live customer service call and you get to see and realize what is happening and what they’re doing when they have put you on hold. There was a really cool clue mini game for the sprint festival and it was very competitive. Towards the end of the sprint festival my legs were battered and bruised from the running up and down of the stairs, but besides that it was a great experience and would recommend it to anyone.
Tasks I completed while at the CIPD
One of the first tasks I completed was using Siteimprove, this application lets the user witness the statistics of the user’s web page on the internet. . I found it extremely interesting to look at the data on the different pages of the CIPD website. I looked at the views, downloads and visits of the Neurodiversity article and the Brexit article which were recently published. I went onto Microsoft excel and input the stats onto a table so they could be seen clearly.
My second task I completed was using web8 and Tridian. My task was to insert the nutshell issue 75 pages onto the CIPD website. Liz showed me how to use Tridian and I began working on inputting the information into the correct section. I found this task enjoyable since Tridian was a fast and easy to use. This objective took us 4 days to complete it and it got published on Friday 16th.
Next I helped Louisa judge some entries for a ‘best place to work’ It was interesting to what some organisations were offering to their employees. Some of the organisations were really impressive and stood out from the rest.
I helped one of the sprint festival participants set up for Tuesday. I was cutting and sticking the ideas individuals had onto the wall for display purposes.
During all of this was working on my blog passively. Lastly I got the experience to use survey monkey and I was inputting the questions. This task was very tedious but never the less it was good to get to learn how to use the applications. I inputted two surveys which took a couple of days alongside other tasks.
In conclusion my work experience at the CIPD was worthwhile and I am super thankful for it. If any other work experience student is looking to come to the CIPD I reassure you that you won’t regret it. Everyone in the building is friendly, welcoming and happy. The food is amazing, free and trust me you won’t forget it.
