I am in sixth form in St Albans and I contacted Cosine to ask if I could do my work placement there. It is actually very difficult at the moment to find companies that will host work experience students so I was delighted that Cosine agreed to host me. I recently spent a week there.
I must say that I was very nervous on my first day. I was not sure what to expect even though Cosine has been in contact prior to my work experience week to talk to me about what to expect and to understand what I was interested in and how they could support. I need not have worried as I was welcomed on my first day by Sarah Smith, Cosine HR Business Partner. They were all ready for me with a full work experience plan for the week, my laptop and a desk. The first few hours involved getting a full tour of the building and meeting lots of people who were all very welcoming and kind.
My first day was spent in the people hub and I was taken through how they welcome new starters and how they are inducted into Cosine and the payroll process. The afternoon was spent with the recruitment team and I was able to listen in on interviews and understand how they recruit. Cosine has its own in house recruitment team. They explained to me how difficult the recruitment market is at the moment and therefore the importance of looking after their people. Cosine has a really strong set of values that has people at the heart of it.
The second day was spent doing their training for new starters – this is the training every new starter has to complete. They asked me to feed back to them on the user experience! It was actually very quick and luckily I passed all the modules which was a relief. Once I had done this I then spent the afternoon with a member of the client account team. They talked to me about account management and what was involved in being an effective client handler. I found this session really interesting and fun and they also took me through the many different clients that Cosine work with. There are lots of clients. They work with some big brands!
The third day was spent with their HR team again. They talked to me about employee engagement and the many policies that they have in place and how they develop these. The afternoon was spent with their internal sales academy team. Cosine has lots of internal training to ensure their field teams deliver their targets. They seem to really care about their people. I was also very lucky to meet the MD of *shopt Jemma. *shopt is their digital convenience app and they have over 24,000 convenience retailers who use it. Jemma explained how it is used and how they use this alongside their face to face visits to really drive sales for their clients. It was so easy to download and use. *shopt was also 4years old that day and Jemma made sure there was cake which was the best bit of the week.
On Thursday, I was very lucky to be invited to Future of shopping event. This was very interesting and I heard from several expert speakers about the big trends and cultural shifts taking place across retail. There was lots of discussion about how Covid has changed shopping behaviour forever and how we are seeing the evolutions grow, shift and continue at an unprecedented pace . It was very thought-provoking.
Friday was my last day and it was spent with Finance and Operations. Finance was something I was interested in and they took me through a P&L and talked to me about how they run a business. Managing costs effectively and diving profitable revenue is something I am doing in my Economics A level so seeing how the Cosine finance team run the business was great. After finance it was time for lunch and as a treat, Cosine had pizzas delivered for everyone and the whole office came together to talk and chat. I then spent the afternoon with the Operations team and I got to understand how they run the day to day business, and are responsible for a lot including cars and all assets as well as on site facilities and food.
I loved my work experience at Cosine and it was great to meet new people and I learned first-hand what it’s really like to be in a workplace. This opportunity was really worth it. I would recommend Cosine and if you are looking for a new job, then I would say get in contact with the Cosine recruitment team.
Thank you for the amazing week!
Katie