In February, I joined Build Recruitment as an intern through a partnership with the University of East London. At the time, I was unaware of how recruitment worked, and knew even less about the Built Environment – the sector we recruit for.
In July, as my internship came to an end, I became a full-time member of the Build Recruitment team, as the company’s Operations Administrator. What did that transition look like?
Well, it began by being mentored by the support staff here, and learning what recruitment was all about. At Build, recruiting is more than just numbers and fees; it’s about people, and making sure that everybody – from the client to the candidate – has a positive and productive experience.
I joined Build Recruitment during an exciting time. Going through a rebrand and attaining the ISO 9001 accreditation, the office was bustling, day in, day out. A new website and assortment of marketing materials meant that they needed a writer, and my degree – Creative & Professional Writing – let me fit right in. Working alongside the Marketing Executive, I helped produce content for the brand-new site; something I’ve maintained even into this full-time role I now find myself in.
The connection between my degree and a recruitment agency might not be immediately apparent, but all the transferable skills I’ve picked up along the way helped me hugely within the internship, and in this permanent role. In fact, we even published a weekly feature on our social media channels exploring exactly that. Here’s just a handful:
- Teamwork – Working with others in collaborative coursework at university has made being part of a cohesive Operations team a much more natural process
- Creativity – Completing a degree in which creativity plays a central role has boosted my ability to assist with marketing efforts and internal communications
- Research – This one’s a real shock, but studying at university involved plenty of research. This translated seamlessly into a compliance role, because auditing and organising isn’t hugely different to browsing reference books in a library.
If you can’t tell, I’d definitely recommend an internship; especially if you’re a university soon-to-be graduate looking for some hands-on experience. Even if a full-time position isn’t guaranteed at the end of it, the wealth of knowledge and skills you’ll pick up along the way make it undeniably useful.
While I’ve got you, here’s some more content I’ve written for our blog here at Build:
- Four Things to NOT Do in an Interview
- How to Deliver Criticism – The Right Way
- The 4 Key Benefits of an Internship
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