What’s it like working for Armagard? In her own words, Alicia Rossington of Shelfield Community Academy gives an insight into day-to-day life at Armagard. This is her work experience diary…
Meet Alicia Rossington, a student of Shelfield Community Academy in Walsall, who recently enjoyed a five-day work experience placement with Armagard.
Alicia Rossington.
In her own words, Alicia recounts her time in the world of work with a day-to-day diary of her experiences.
Alicia explains what work experience means to her
“Work experience is created to give students a better understanding of the world of work and become well acquainted with what it involves. Even though some students find that work experience is unnecessary, I believe that if the right place is chosen, it can help you greatly in the future.
When deciding where to go and do your placement, you should choose a place that piques your interest as it can help towards deciding what you might consider doing after you leave school.
For me, I decided to spend my week of work experience at Armagard, which sells digital signage and protective enclosures for computers, printers and screens to different countries. During my placement, I experienced various areas of the business such as: production, marketing, IT and sales.”
Just some examples of the digital signage enclosure units manufactured and sold by Armagard.
Armagard diary – First day
“On the first day I got given an introduction to the company and how they operated, which then led on to spending the rest of the morning shadowing one of the sales staff. Additionally, because the company is reliant on IT skills and technology, I spent a great deal of time with the IT team.
I had some time with the Web Design team, learning about Google analytics and how websites are created, alongside doing more interactive things, such as creating a website and learning how to use Photoshop.”
Day 2
“My second day was mainly spent in the production area, where they build the enclosures for the company. The staff showed me how the enclosures are built and had to make sure that everything was precise.
After watching what had to be done, I was allowed to help out in manufacturing one of the enclosures, which I really enjoyed as it was different to the work I had previously done.
I learnt about the MRP system and also spent a little time in customer support, where I was taught about the importance of good customer service for the business.”
Day 3
“On the third day I got to do something more specialised and focused on marketing, as it is something that I enjoy doing alongside business.
I worked on finding both competitors of the business and potential resellers online for the different products that Armagard sell and found that a lot of other companies also sold a lot of digital signage products.
I liked the challenge of having to find competitors and resellers for other countries and not just the UK as it is an important part of business to do market research so that they are able to identify their competition.”
Day 4
“For my fourth day working at the company, as of my strong interest in the marketing area of the business, I was set to write an article based on my week’s placement at Armagard.
I was given various different articles to read that were all based on products that they sell, to give me an idea of what I should include once I’d begin to write the article.
The company’s article writer also showed me different websites on which they have published articles on before and which ones were best for the different types of articles. I also learnt the importance of how posting regular articles on products for the customer can have a beneficial effect on sales increase.”
Day 5
“On the last day of my placement I continued to work on my article and then proofread my own work before handing it over to the company’s article writer.
He showed me how the layout of the article was important to the reader and it is easier to use subheadings and short paragraphs to make it look more appealing, rather than having big chunks of writing laid out on a page.
He also showed me the benefit of alerting customers to new content by using social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook (which are both used by Armagard). These pages can also be useful in making it easier to view some of the products instead of having to go directly onto the company’s website.
I was also shown another social media website which the company used that I had not heard of before, called LinkedIn. It is different to the other sites as it is specifically based on other people in business, and not just the general public.
Other companies are able to view the Armagard page and read the product articles which they may be interested in, and actually see where the products are used instead of just seeing the models on the Armagard website.”
Armagard says
“It was thoroughly enjoyable having Alicia with us, she was a pleasure to work with and got to grips with tasks very quickly. She enjoyed the experience, with a particular interest in how Armagard markets itself as a company around the world.”
