Hello, I’m Rachel and for this past week, I have been on work experience at Conscious Solutions. For those who may not know, work experience is when somebody, typically a student, goes to a workplace that they are interested in to get an understanding of how it feels to work there and decide whether they are a good fit for that area of work. Additionally, having work experience is useful when applying to jobs as it shows the employer that you already have an understanding of work-life, giving them increased confidence in you, which may make you stand out from the rest of the other candidates.
Why I Chose Conscious Solutions for my placement
I first took interest in this placement because I was between two ideas of where I wanted to get a placement, either at a law firm, at the time I had an interest in becoming a lawyer or doing something that involved the business/marketing aspect, as I thoroughly enjoy my business GCSE. I then decided to speak to my Uncle Tim, as I knew he had many contacts for either placement due to his vast number of contacts from his business, CANDDi, so I knew he was the perfect person to speak to for this.
He then came back to me with Conscious Solutions, and over email electronically introduced me to both David Gilroy and Vaida Zibaite. After a discussion over email, I truly discovered that Conscious Solutions was the perfect company for both of my interests. My placement here was finalised at the end of October 2022, 8 months before my work experience week, which relieved the pressure from my school to find a placement in time, and gave me great excitement to start.
My experience at Conscious Solutions
During my May half-term, I came into the office for the first time to get some final paperwork signed, and I was kindly shown around and discovered the biggest surprise in the office, the dogs! I realised then and there that I couldn’t be more excited for my week here.
In addition to everything else, the location of Conscious Solutions is amazing, especially for someone who enjoys shopping, because it’s located a 10-minute walking distance from Cabot Circus, perfect for browsing shops during the hour lunch break.
When I came in on Monday, I was warmly greeted and shown where I would spend my week. The work was at a level I could easily understand, and I felt very included in their space. On Monday, I attended the lunch and learn about AI and I found it very interesting and informative, especially as I had very little information on this subject before, increasing the depth of my knowledge about AI and how it could be effectively used in a business setting.
Throughout the week, my tasks become more advanced each day, and I was given access to SuiteCRM and could add and edit records, making me feel like part of the Conscious team and I felt like I was doing work that would help the rest of the team in the future.
In addition to the work, going to team meetings also made me feel very included and welcome in the Conscious team, this was an aspect that I’m very grateful for because it made my week so much more enjoyable and made it even harder leaving on Friday.
The Conscious Team
The entire Conscious team was incredibly welcoming and lovely to me from the very beginning, and as I’ve already mentioned, I couldn’t be more grateful.
Everyone at Conscious is so amazing, and it creates a safe, warm, and welcoming working environment. This makes the space an easy place to thrive and to work hard in. Thank you to the entire Conscious team, you’ve all made my week so amazing and fun, and given me a strong insight into what a supportive, caring office space looks like.
In conclusion, I would highly recommend coming here for work experience for anyone who enjoys working with computers in a sociable office space. I’m so grateful for this opportunity I’ve had to learn about Conscious Solutions - as a company and what happens behind the scenes; as well as a general overview of how work-life looks, giving a stronger idea of what I would like to pursue when I leave education in the coming years.
This week has been so very informative for me, and I couldn’t recommend work experience to anyone more, so if you know someone who has the opportunity to, strongly encourage them to do it because even if they don’t enjoy it, it informs them about what they don’t want to do in the future, which can help many people narrow down their options of what they would like to do in the future.