As a fifteen year old still at school, I was given the opportunity to work in a Recruitment office in Glasgow for my work experience. I didn’t know what it meant to work in an office but I learnt very quickly that there are a lot of different tasks to do. Some of the jobs I carried out included CV formatting which did sound really complicated but once I had been shown, it wasn’t too bad. Also, I carried out credit checks on people looking to get jobs in financial services. The opportunity to see a candidate registration was also given to me – which is when a person wants to get a job through the recruitment agency, they get interviewed by one of the consultants. In addition to this, I carried out CV searches on the internet to find candidates that look good for jobs.
One thing that I’ve come to realise in my time working here is that they use technical names for simple things. For example; ‘procurement’, basically all it means is people buying things to use for work (i.e. – company car or computers). Another example is ‘General Ad Hoc Duties’, this is when the business needs stuff done. (i.e. – purchase a new filing cabinet or photocopying).
I like the nature of everyone in the office, they’re chatty, but in a good way though! We all have some laughs in the office too, we talk about things that are not even related to our jobs, for example- Jane, Fatima and Susan were all talking about tea, what’s their favourite tea, how long do they leave the tea bag in for and watching programs about how they make tea. Unbelievably British, I know!
Evaluation of my work experience
I have really enjoyed my time here at FPSG, everyone’s really friendly. It is not what I thought a stereotypical office job would be in a dark, gloomy and stuffy office where no one talked to one and other and are scared do anything in case a boss gives them into trouble. My opinion is that all people in FPSG work hard as they are on the phones talking with people all the time, their keyboards are being tapped all the time and I think you can hear their brains whirring.
I did find it hard to understand why I was carrying out certain jobs because I didn’t carry out the whole process just a part of it. I would have needed to be working there for a long time to understand the whole process.
The office also held a Macmillan Coffee morning on Friday and that was great fun setting up the room with all decorations and cakes. We raised £192 for the charity. Most people in the office home made their cakes but we also bought some extra ones from the shops. The cakes we had left we donated to the homeless people in Glasgow so they could have some food.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed my time at FPSG, I loved working with the different people and I feel that I did learn a bit more about how offices work.
Author: Eve Hammond
