Graduate Profiles Detail United Kingdom

As an e-commerce executive for the GB market, I look after the health and beauty products of our direct customer experience channels. I create and take care of the content that goes online and also look at ways we can improve engagement and really drive the awareness of our products to different types of consumers at different stages of the purchase journey. I also run campaigns, promotional offers and any launches of new products of either of the categories I work in.

I only have been in this role for two months as I have been recently promoted. But what I like about the it is that every day is different and I get to do all kind of things. No two days are the same. I also like that I have more responsibilities and the ability to make changes to the online experience. Being able to see my ideas come to live almost immediately and what impact they have. I also love my team and how supportive and encouraging they are, which to me is essential when working somewhere. Being surrounded by nice people makes your job that more enjoyable.

Besides the academic knowledge and getting my degree, I would say the biggest thing that has helped me secure a job a month after finishing my studies was going on my placement after my second year.

I did my placement with UWE Careers and not only did it give me solid technical skills but most importantly it gave me soft skills. How to communicate in a work place environment, how to manage my time, how to estimate my own abilities when it came to certain tasks, how to put myself out there, how to stay resilient and how to ask for help and support. It also prepared me to what was to come after securing a graduate job so starting a 9-5 job was not such a huge change to my system. It give me the drive and the confidence to gather more working experience after that. Because after my placement I also did a summer internship through UWE’s Undergraduate internship scheme, started my own society on campus and worked as a ResilientU and Academic PAL leader in my final year. And I do believe that doing all of this gave me a competitive edge when applying for jobs after finishing my degree. But obviously you don’t have to do all of this. Just get involved and say yes to new things and push yourself out of the comfort zone. It’s really not as bad as it seems in your head.

I’m not going to list all the 40 technical skills and top 10 soft skills and 20 most sought transferable skills I think you should have before you graduate. Because I know you already know and have heard them all. So I’m going to say something else. I think it’s really important to develop good resilience throughout your studies in the UK. It is already quite challenging to find a job after graduating for someone who is not an international student so it’s twice as hard to do so if you are one. It takes a lot of work and a lot of effort but great things in life don’t come easy. Great things take time. This is a true story - I did not find my placement until the 3rd week of August 2019 which was two week before new academic year was about to start. If I were to give up that year, I would not be where I am today. So always be resilient and don’t give up. If I did it, so can you!

And please use all the amazing FREE resources from the careers service like the career toolkit or the career coaching. It’s there for you and for your use so please use it. I’m being a little bias since I did my placement with everyone that works on that team BUT it’s super useful and I use it til this day to prep for my interviews and tailoring my CVs. You will thank me later!

And lastly the scary interviews. Remember you are also looking at the company to see if they are a good fit with your career path or not. Always have questions ready at hand for when the interview is over and they ask the dreaded question of ‘Do you have any questions?’. Nothing screams more unprepared than a no. And my top tip that works every single time is to not be scared of the silence. Don’t feel like you have to rush into answering   questions right away. Let the panel know that you will take a few seconds to process the question before answering. I always write down the whole question word by word to calm my mind down and by the end I finish writing it down, I already have a great answer to reply with! I know, that’s super awkward to do but these things are already terribly awkward and nerve wracking so what is a little bit more going to do? Also prep well and use the SMART method to answer. You can do this!

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn :).