My name is Emily; I am 18 and currently studying L3 Fashion Business and Retail. I decided to undertake 4 weeks of work experience here at Pennine to gain the fundamental skills needed to support my next career steps.
Over the past month, I have been working across both the procurement and marketing team, I have gained the experience of working in a professional environment across a friendly and welcoming team. Despite other work experience, Pennine gave me the access to directly contact suppliers world-wide. This ultimately pushed me to exceed my previous limits and dive into the real-life industry of procurement, I successfully implemented the goal of reducing their current costs impacting revenue with manufacturing products! I also joined formal meetings with global suppliers about current economic challenges.
Most of my time spent with the procurement team, I was really welcomed. They even surprised me with decorating my desk and flowers for my birthday! During my time with the marketing team, I was able to continue their commitment to enrich communities by promoting a more positive, youthful workplace. I had the opportunity to join in the Football Shirt Friday promotion fun. This was in connection with raising funds for their chosen charity; Safe and Sound Group – dedicated to transforming young lives. During this, I got involved with their social media, I particularly enjoyed this. Using their mini microphone was the highlight of my day! I worked alongside the lovely Georgie to interview members of the Pennine team about their shirts and favourite players. This was a success, leading to them reaching their goal of £500! In addition to this, I also created content used in their LinkedIn page to promote National Guide Dog Day and World Safety and Health at Work Day 2025.
I particularly enjoyed the marketing side as I was able to get involved with all tasks head on and this pushed me out of my comfort zone at times.
I also completed a competitor analysis task on three other companies in the medical device industry, this consisted of me using a range of resources: I overlooked social media accounts, website, financial accounts, their employee stats, certificates and LinkedIn pages associated with the company. Using these with the help of Pennine, I was able to identify their clear strengths and weaknesses which can determine the next steps for Pennine. This built up my communication skills as I professionally worked with other departments across the building such as finance, which helped me with sourcing the finical accounts for each individual company.
Given the opportunity to work amongst both areas, I particularly enjoyed the marketing side as I was able to get involved with all tasks head on and this pushed me out of my comfort zone at times. However, I gained significant confidence over my time working at Pennine and hope to bring this forward in finding my apprenticeship later this year. Overall, I really enjoyed my time here and the incredible team it offers and would recommend this experience to anyone facing the challenge of being uncertain about what career path to choose.
