At Inkerman London, we understand how work experience is becoming ever more important for landing your chosen University course or your dream career opportunity. In the 22 years Inkerman has been in business, we have had over 50 people joining us for work experience. The majority of these are school leavers and some mid-university degree.
Varied work experience
We ensure that those on work experience at Inkerman London gain an insight into all areas of the business including sales, marketing, wrapping & despatch, research, social media, photography and finance. Not having an idea of what you want to do can be extremely daunting when leaving school or university and work experience provides many benefits, giving skills and experience that will allow people to stand out to potential employers as well as helping choose the right sector to work in.
A career at Inkerman London
Beyond work experience, at Inkerman London we believe that ‘on the job’ performance is worth more than a piece of paper containing qualifications, which is why we often employ school and college leavers for our permanent roles. We don’t require our staff to have degree level education, instead we choose the most passionate applicants, and guide them as employees through the training process and they become well-rounded, business savvy team members who stay with us for many years.
We pride ourselves on our ethics, supporting those returning to the workplace after maternity leave and working mothers. Alongside this, we are an equal opportunities employer believing that everyone should be given a chance to pursue their chosen career. It is our ethics and flexible working environment that has led to our employees to become a welcoming team, with a range of skills that we nurture as a business.
Marie’s work experience at Inkerman
In July, I did a week of work experience at the Inkerman London office alongside the wonderful and kind team there, who helped me gain an insightful understanding of the cogs inside the machine that is Inkerman. I spent the week assisting the photography team staging new products, editing them and uploading the photography onto partner websites, and also learning to prepare gift boxes - doing the ribbon is truly a form of art that I have come to immensely respect.
Doing all of this alongside learning to answer phone calls confidently and processing customer’s orders has given me key work skills that would apply to almost any job in the future. The team that work here are so hardworking with such a positive and kind mindset that it’s infectious, and always took the time to assist and guide me with any confusing details, and I never felt out of my depth, but challenged and motivated to do the best I could.
I immensely appreciate everything that the team here at Inkerman have done for me and to help me with my work experience, and I would recommend to anyone who was looking for work experience to start here.
How to gain work experience
It can be difficult to know what area to work in or what a company is looking for when trying to break into a career path. Director of Inkerman London, Kiki Grigson gives the following top tips for gaining work experience within a company:
Research the company, be brave and call them
Show self-motivation & initiative
Good people skills - be able to communicate with the DPD driver through to company Chairman and have a sense of humour
Polite and well mannered in person, on the telphone and in emails, with good spelling and grammar
Be flexible - turn their hand to anything and prepare to go the extra mile
Accept comments as positives not criticisms.
Well written and structured CV and covering letter
Well presented at Interview
Contact Inkerman for more information
In this modern age, all of the above are values in which Inkerman was founded on and are still very much at the forefront of the business. To find out more about our career opportunities or to apply for work experience, please send your curriculum vitae and cover letter to kiki@inkerman.co.uk
