What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 18 July 2016

Welcome to another week and this week at Cloud 9 Towers we are being joined by Libby Simpson who is here on a week’s work experience. Whilst we won’t be asking her to do any venue finding this week, we are conscious we do want her to get a taste of what it’s like in our company. 

We like to think we are pretty nice people and we won’t be asking Libby to do anything that any member of the team would do as part of their normal work routine, but what makes a good experience for both an employer and those undertaking what can be their first encounter on a work experience placement?

Work experience is the ideal learning opportunity for young people, and can often kick-start a career or learning curve. The key is to show enthusiasm, according to the experts.

Around 80% of employers think work experience is essential, according to a survey by the City & Guilds vocational training organisation, and two-thirds of employers would be more likely to hire a young person with work experience over someone who hasn’t had any.

There is plenty of research to say why work experience is vital, and with stints in the workplace, young people can begin to build their own networks to make use of in the future. But to capitalise on the experience, a young person braving an office or work site for the first time needs to know how to prepare and how to use and learn from the experience.

Youngsters might sit in the wrong seat or feel awkward, dress inappropriately or not fully understand the task they have been assigned, but they might also learn how to react to situations and pick up well on what they should be doing. Smaller companies, like Cloud 9 Event Management, might offer a broader taste of work than large organisations with lots of different departments.

It is a simple enough concept and work experience should be what it says on the tin, proper work experience and not being treated like a skivvy or only making the tea. So here at Cloud 9 whilst we don’t want to bore Libby to death, our pile of hotel and venue brochures is getting seriously close to collapse, it’s that high. Especially post Meetings Show when certain members of the team seemed to collect information from just about every exhibitor! So we are hoping that a little geography lesson along with a little filing might be a good place to start.

This will also help us with some research for our daily #VenueTipoftheDay posts on social media and help organise our Venue storage cloud, on which we post the latest information on venues by region in the UK and then globally for our venue finding division.

It won’t all be filing though, social media plays a big part here and if nothing else, we do know that youngsters embrace this well so that will also be key for Libby here.

And you never know, we might just persuade her to write a blog for us for next week.

Have a great week and enjoy!