At John Lewis I work in the position of Stock Management. I’ve been working part-time at the company since the Leicester store opened. The role quite varied but it essentially includes:

• Receiving deliveries from distribution centre
• Replenish stock on the shop floor
• Serve customers at the customer collection point (CCP)

I am also one of the few partners in the Leicester branch who have responsibility of the Selling Stock Movement (or SSM). The SSM is a secure storage for high value or bulk items. Stock levels are recorded in a bespoke system. And this system must always be 100% accurate as it connects to the tilling systems.

I enjoy working at John Lewis and the best part is my colleagues. Everybody treats each other with respect and that includes the managers.

This was a secondment that lasted until the local systems partners were made redundant.

As part of the Systems Support team to provide 2nd line IT support for then whole branch.

Responsibilities:

• Set up new users for the JL systems.
• Provide training for new partners.
• Respond to calls and fix problems to ensure till units are working.
• Liaise with head office of updates to systems and methodologies.
• Provide maintenance to local servers.

I really enjoyed being part of the systems team. But as all functions were being centralised, there were no permanent placements.

Aurum Holdings is the parent company of jewellery retailers Goldsmiths, Mappin & Webb and Watches of Switzerland. I initially worked at Aurum Holdings to help in the summer time when they had an influx of sales due to the 2012 London summer Olympics. But I was soon bought back to help them with the rest of the year including the Christmas period.

The role was warehouse operative. But I was working with high value goods and the premises had state of the art security systems in place. I also had to pass a security check before starting my placement.

There are three main parts to this role: picking and packing stock to send to the stores, processing and storing deliveries from manufacturers, and processing returns from the stores. I also helped picking and packing for online orders (these were orders that were placed on the official retailer websites

I enjoyed my time there and it was very interesting to work with expensive Swiss made watches and understanding how they work.

This is a company that helps oversees students with their applications to university. They also help students find the right institution with right course according to their requirements.

My role was an applications officer and it was my job to research universities and process applications.