Alice

At GE I worked within a team of 20 Contract Managers, alongside Legal Counsel and our U.S counterparts. My role involved the review, drafting and negotiation of commercial and military contracts such as General Terms, Non-disclosure Agreements and License Agreements. I also played a part in advising the company on risk and compliance, presenting risky terms to other business functions in the pre-award stage and through the life of a contract. I was solely responsible for the creation and negotiation of Non-disclosure agreements, whereby I collaborated with the sales team and customer to create an appropriate agreement.

I was able to use my knowledge and experience to present a negotiation workshop with GE to students at my University as well as a lunch and learn session to my colleagues. I gained first-hand insight into the running and motivations of a global, commercial company, understanding the business needs and strategies, which I used to inform my advice to the company and negotiations with customers.

With more than 50 interns on site, a colleague and I founded a committee to organise site visits and provide career and development talks and social events for interns to ensure everyone felt included.

My internship taught me exquisite attention to detail, time management and effective communication. I experienced discussing complex legal issues with colleagues, high profile customers and our cross-border teams, developing a refined professional manner.

Duriing my 1 week work experieence, I sat in the Corporate, Employment and Family departments across one week, shadowing the solicitors and learning about the areas of law. I sat in on client meetings, taking notes on the legal issues and case details to upload to the client’s files. Witnessing these meetings demonstrates the appropriate manner to adopt when discussing sensitive information and how to present difficult legal matters to a client. Moreover, I learnt to extract the key information to concisely summarise the meeting in my minutes.

I produced an article on maternity rights in Employment Law which I presented to a Partner, expanding on my presentation and research skills. The partner then asked me to review an employment law dispute and the settlement letter they had drafted. I used my attention to detail to identify some minor errors which I highlighted to the Partner and corrected.

Whilst with the corporate team, I created a tool to be directly used by clients, informing them of different charity structures and their applicability. I also performed due diligence on the Firm’s client handouts to ensure the information and law was up to date, researching patents and copyright law to do so.

These tasks gave me an insight into the breadth of cases each department sees and how they work together to provide the client with the best service. This experience confirmed my interest in corporate and employment law as it allowed me to apply my commercial and business acumen to the tasks.

I marshalled the head criminal judge at Truro Crown Court for 3 days as he adjudicated on a high profile (for Cornwall) robbery trial. I discussed the evidence with the Judge and each day’s proceedings to confirm my understanding of the law and running of the trial. We discussed how Judges decide appropriate sentences considering the mitigating and aggravating factors of the case at hand. The Judge invited me to lunch in the Judge’s chambers where I met a circuit family Judge and he kindly shared his experiences and advice.

This experience taught me a professional manner and taught me to analyse case details in more depth. I gained an insight to the behind the scenes and general operations of a court and the roles played within it. Most importantly, this experience demonstrated to me that my skill set, and desires align more with the role of a solicitor within a commercial setting.

At St. Austell Brewery I sat within the finance department as a part-time summer accounts assistant. I was solely responsible for the processing and data entry of food invoices for payment authorisation of the 29 managed houses owned by St.Austell Brewery. This required quick thinking and endurance as I was manually inputting the data of over 600 invoices 3 days. This included applying the correct individual customer and supplier code to every invoice, which I began to memorise very quickly.

I was also put onto a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) project in which I was responsible for contacting suppliers and updating them on the new legislation and asking them to return a form stating their data preferences. I would then update their preferences, ensuring the business was complying with the new rules.

From time to time I would pick up general office tasks such as filing and document scanning as well as filling in for others when they were away. I developed an understanding of an office environment, working closely with the various teams in the department. Moreover, I developed an awareness of the company and its different functions as well as the factors contributing to its success. For example, its acquisition of Bath Ales enabling geographical expansion and wider customer reach.

This role taught me the importance of attention to detail, teamwork and introduced me to the office environment.

My role at Debenhams started as a Christmas Temp, I was then offered a permanent role working both Saturdays and Sundays as a sales assistant. I started with maintaining the shop floor, restocking, folding, and ordering clothes in size order to create an enjoyable experience for customers. I would also man the fitting rooms, this task involved maintaining the stores security standards ensuring all items were accounted for and number tags were regularly counted. In addition, it required a friendly, empathetic attitude as I would assist customers with the clothes and offer advice on how it looked. I thoroughly enjoyed the interaction with customers, particularly when they asked for my professional opinion or advice.

I was also till trained, processing sales, returns and store credit card applications. At times we would attend to customers who had a complaint, I would maintain a professional, understanding manner and go above and beyond to rectify the situation providing excellent customer service with a smile. I was later trained to perform the stores bra fitting service, instilling confidence in the customer of my capabilities, despite only being 17.

It was not long before my efforts and positive attitude were recognised, and I was trusted with the responsibility of running the department on Sunday’s. This involved allocating roles and breaks for the staff, setting out any promotions or sales, dealing with customer and staff queries and being responsible for the end of day accounts and closing tasks. I thoroughly enjoyed the responsibility.

By responding to an advertisementI worked part time in this role alongside my A-level studies and at weekends. Similarly to my role at Debenhams, I was responsible for restocking, tidying, till operation and providing assistance to our customers. In addition, the role at Mothercare required intensive product and pregnancy knowledge ranging from breastfeeding knowhow to the appropriate firmness of a baby’s mattress for their age. I had to quickly learn and absorb this information to effectively inform our customers of our products and answer their queries. I was trained in the pushchair/ pram department in which I had to learn and demonstrate the intricacies of products, how the collapse, fold, interchange and perform. This knowledge came to fruition when I lead a talk on new-born must haves at a Mother and Baby evening event at the store. I thoroughly enjoyed learning so much as it enabled me to provide the highest standard of customer service which felt very rewarding, particularly when assisting expecting parents.

Here I worked as an assistant in a café carrying out many roles including, taking customers food and drink orders, informing them of any daily promotions and operating the till and taking payment. I became barista trained to make hot drinks as well as cold drinks such as smoothies and shakes. I was not afraid to get stuck in and play my part in the team, often offering to go on dish washing duty where I became very efficient ensured high standards were kept. I would also assist the kitchen staff in basic food preparation and start work early to help pre make the packaged sandwiches and toasties. Health and safety were key, so I was sure to follow all kitchen safety guidelines.

After a year of working long weekend and summer shifts, I was promoted to manage the Sunday roast service in the restaurant with one other colleague. This was a more refined table service shift which required a more professional approach than in the café. We would work with the chefs to set up and run a successful service, seating customers, taking orders, preparing drinks, serving food, and clearing the dishes. In the summer months, I would independently run the ice cream kiosk in the site carpark. I would also waitress at events such as weddings and murder mystery evenings.

This job founded my confidence and harnessed my ability to multi-task and be efficient. It was extremely fast paced but that is what made it so enjoyable.