My Graduate Success: My First Day

I’m glad I had the opportunity to take a week off on holiday after my course had finished and before my job began.  Although to be honest, in this climate, I’m glad I even have a job at all – not to mention a job that I enjoy.

Before I started I wasn’t sure what to expect, I had done loads of internships that were based around a lot of administrative duties – so the work was mundane a lot of the time – I’m sure other interns would agree. However, in light of this, I couldn’t really judge how my new job would compare to internships; I just knew it would be more than just admin work.

On the first day itself I arrived early (of course) and just in time for a ‘what am I getting myself in for’ Starbucks (just kidding) – though I did have a Starbucks. I guess I was feeling calm with a few nerves (to be expected), not anywhere near as nervous as I was for my interview though.

One of the first things I did was meet the team - the people sitting around my desk - who are all lovely. I felt at ease straight away. Even being presented with my very own desk was a definite high moment. They had even put some new stationary on my desk – I love the little professional freebies.

Next I had a couple of one to ones with my new bosses – this is now a regular weekly occurrence. These are basically briefing meetings about what I was going to be doing in the job on a day to day basis and were a suitable time for me to pose any questions. I’ve now accumulated an entire folder of help and handover sheets! I knew straight away that there was going to be plenty of work to do. Also, I did all the general housekeeping (to be expected) such as setting up my voicemail and the computer. In fact, my mailbox was already set up for me and I had over a hundred emails – luckily quite a few of them could just be deleted.

I handle all the marketing enquiries so I had a lot of those to attend to, and honestly the whole first week was very busy indeed. I like being busy though. I started slightly early, left slightly late and there was no time to have a lunch break, but I enjoyed the fast paced environment and I learnt things very quickly. As I’ve said to my bosses the job is better than I expected though it was difficult to form any expectations anyway.

I know that a few of you are keen to find out what I do and what some of my duties are, so I guess I’ll leave you with a little description…

I handle all online competitions for woman&home and the Homes titles, including print comps for Style at Home. I send out four newsletters a week to our Homes database. I create and analyse data spreadsheets. I handle all enquiries. I organise goody bags for events and anything else events related. For woman&home I as well design (brief to designers) and write content for our emails, whether it’s a new issue email or an offer email. Not to mention anything else my bosses throw my way! It’s quite a varied role, it has a technical side to it too, but I do really enjoy it.

2012 has been proven to be a great year for me and securing my first job has allowed me to reflect a bit. I’m really glad that the last few years of my life have happened – that I went to University, undertook work experience and was motivated enough to get this job.

I’m never leaving out of choice - IPC would literally have to throw me out!