Rate My Placement

Find out what our Guest Bloggers are getting up to. Throughtout the year we will be following the progress of our Guest Bloggers as they find a placement or keep us updated as to what they are doing on their placement. Click here to read all entries from our bloggers or click here to meet them.

Hello all, I start this blog by saying that I am ready to admit I am on the path to old age!! I have turned 21. I had a fun time on the nights we went out, lost a lot of money in the casino and drunk way too many beers. After the hangovers went and the bottles of champagne were cleared, I realised that ….. I was now old. This put me in a kind of depressing mood for the week after my well deserved holiday. Who will know how things will turn out now, will I become more mature? or will I become depressed? what will this new number of age bring??

Anyway back on to my placement, the quarterly briefing went quite well. We were told that the group had good financial stability and that we were looking at breaking even, which in my eyes and current economic situation I thought was a good achievement for the company. THEN!! one week later we had little informal meeting, I have to say these are the worse kind of meetings. We were told that the company was due to make a big loss at the end of the year and that hours will be cut and that jobs may be lost. I have never been in this situation before and been in the office later that day, it home to some people and they become very emotional and I did not know what to do. I felt quite helpless and speechless (not like me at all!!). After this all settled down things have started to get back to normal as my colleagues try forget about what they have been told.

I end this on that, I have arranged a customer visit before the end of the month were I will visit the customer by myself without the help of manager. Which may be fun, a guy who has known about stainless steel for 4 months going out and telling a customer what’s what. But I am really looking forward to it!!! So I am going to leave it there as this blog is quite depressing and I’m getting depressed writing it. So join me soon when everything will be happy again. HAPPY TIMES!!

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Now things are starting to get rolling!! My second blog, were should I start? With my awesome nights out or my ever intensifying placement.

OK then nights out, you still got to be a student even though you are still on placement!! Well it was Halloween in the days that have passed, so me and my friends organised a mid-week exploration of the wonderful town that is LEEDS. As you can see from the photo which may have been uploaded now I
didn’t have to get dressed up much as that was a day after work, my colleagues do say I look like a zombie early in the morning’s!! Anyway awesome night.

Back to my placement, things going well currently. WELL today I was stuck in traffic for 2 hours coming into work, so not the happiest of moods. As I left you on the last blog I was off to a couple of places, well Sweden unluckily got cancelled last minute. But Wales we got there! Even if it was through a blizzard and with this customer visit I saw more in depth what happens to the shiny metal of which I sell!! This time I saw it been produced into them things that milk cows (Don’t know what they called for
all the people that want to know) Interesting!! Then we talked figures and was quite intense but was a great experience one that should help me in my final year, to show that I have real experience in buying and selling situations. One disappointment was the lunch POOR!! The order which I told you about is still going through it’s motions but no doubt the wheels will falter at some stage.

You are now fully briefed, now you have to look forward to this! Well we not doing as much business as I first started, maybe due credit crunch who knows!! This month I have the quarterly briefing to look forward to ( Maybe lunch will be better?) and also I have a couple of customer visits lined up as it is end of the year and prices need discussing!! But main thing is that it is my birthday soon 21st as well so that will needed to be celebrated in style.

Join me again as I make my work up the hierarchy, and soon stainless steel domination!!

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With this blog, I will take you on a journey through the weird and wonderful world of OutoKumpu ( Which translates to Strange Hill) and there speciality stainless steel. As I am probably starting this blog a little late ( Better late than never, suppose), I will give you guys a rundown of my responsibilities. I work in the distribution offices, within the sales department selling the shiny stuff to willing magpies! I am currently in the 3rd month of my placement and I am now starting to get within my role, I search for new customers and maintain customer accounts, I offer them solutions, I offer them help, I give them what they want. At the beginning of my placement things were running quite slow I was not trusted with work as I was dealing vast amounts of money and possibly I was not trusted in the team. This I would imagine is same for all placement students, gradually you get to know the people you work with and they are then able to delegate you work and you start to feel more responsible.

On to the present, as you know you cannot live in the past!! I have just completed a £150,000 order and next week I will be off on adventures to Sweden and Wales, Trying to sell the precious metal (well precious to me, now I have taken it to my heart). In my next blog I will tell you about these adventures as I am planning to have a little night in both!! I think I deserve one! and tell you if my big deal has gone smoothly!!

Peace out

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Ben Duffy vital stats
Company: Outokumpu Stainless
Age: 20
University: Sheffield Hallam

“I am Ben Duffy, a 20 year young male and I am currently studying at Sheffield Hallam University in which I am studying for BA Hons in business studies and I am now in the 3rd year of study which is my placement year. My placement for this year of study is at Outokumpu Stainless (No 1 In Stainless) which is based in Finland, Sweden, Holland, England, Germany. I am at the distribution offices in England based in Sheffield, (at which point I stopped living the student life and moved home) I must say I am an upcoming, fast moving stainless steel executive. My role in this placement so far is to basically sell the steel to the willing and also the unwilling, which is proving quite intriguing.

I have currently have been here 2 months and have many highs and lows whilst I’ve been here already. And whilst enjoying one of my vending machine lunches I came across this website and thought why not give this a go. So this could be the first of many blogs, so look forward to highs, lows, happy times and sad times, maybe surprising times. Who knows until we cross these bridges.”

Read Ben’s latest blog entries here.

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