Lewis Clarke

I began working in this role to gain patient facing experience and complement my studies with the aim of becoming a healthcare professional. Although I am now a full time student, I return to the role during summer periods.

The role is physical and heavily patient based. I am required to move patients between wards and take them to locations within the hospital, by means of bed/wheelchair within a small team of 3-5. Other duties include changing medical gas, delivery of medications from the pharmacy to wards, collaboration with nurses and other healthcare professionals and responding to patient needs. I undertake regular training to maintain a relevant and up-to date skillset.

During the Christmas-New Year period, I worked as a volunteer at the winter night shelter for the homeless, working 21:00-07:00 2 nights per week. This involved staying overnight, overseeing the safety and wellbeing of the guests, as well as my colleague, an elderly gentleman. Between 15-20 guests would stay on average, many facing difficult circumstances and hardship. My duties included the preparation and service of food and hot drinks to guests, preparing beds and remaining awake for most of the night, prior to handover to morning staff.

During my time at Sunrice I initially worked as a labourer, preparing and cleaning the storage sheds ready for harvest. After 3 weeks I became responsible for operating the Weighbridge and keeping accurate records. Duties included booking lorries into the site, recording farmers' details and the weight of their loads. I was also trained to operate the testing stand, this required greeting farmers and testing their loads for moisture and quality, to determine the price given per load.

Completion of this this role enabled me to obtain a second year working holiday visa within Australia.

After my promotion to Deputy Store Manager, my role within the company was significantly expanded. On a weekly Rota, I would manage morning, daytime and night shifts, with work pattern ranging from 5am starts, to 3am finishes (which could be all within the same week). My responsibilities included:

Safe handling - Managing the safe and monies, reconciliation of Store Assistants' tills alongside management of general store operations. This task involved quick and accurate thinking, with small error margins.

Store openings - Opening store at 5am, taking delivery of fresh produce and management of 3-5 members of staff; ensuring stock quality, rotation and store standards prior to opening. Ensuring staff adherence to robust timescales as the organization run on high efficiency and fewer staff members.

Close shifts - Management of safe and staff. Updating company systems e.g. waste system. Ensuring efficient stock rotation to keep waste produce to a minimum. Liaise with head office - providing updates and carrying out instructions, this could involve remerchandising of stock and effecting store plan changes. Maintain high presentation standard.

Night shift - Logistical management of high volume stock from pallet to shelf, whilst promoting efficiency and high standards. Ensuring speed and accuracy targets met by colleagues, conducting delivery completion checks and reconciliation of stock lists. Providing staff feedback to further their professional and personal development within Aldi. Placement of orders to replenish stock for the following days.

This period was a major contributor towards my personal development/growth, due to the high level of responsibility.

I was initially employed by Aldi as a Store Assistant. The role was predominantly customer service based; this included handling customer queries, till operation, maintaining stock availability, date/quality checking and dealing with deliveries. The work was physically and mentally demanding; staff are required to ensure cleanliness of the store and freshness and quality of stock. I had to implement robust health and safety procedures at all times, as well as maintaining maximum efficiency to meet strict productivity targets - they must be met to ensure stock prices can be kept to a minimum, to remain strongly competitive with rival supermarkets/grocers.

I was employed by Co-op as a Store Assistant. The role involved dealing with customer enquiries, customer service, till operation, stock control/replenishment and data processing.

I was employed by Key Estates as an Administrator. My main role was Lettings Negotiator, but I also performed other job roles within the company. The role included booking appointments for customers to view properties, providing updates to landlords regarding interest levels in their properties, along with registering applicants and updating the company database. Much of my work was telephone based, dealing with customer enquiries and making contact with potential clients, in order to gain new business.

I was employed as an Apprentice Business Administrator. The role involved: dealing with telephone and email enquiries, preparing the weekly release for the Coventry Evening Telegraph Property Guide, assisting the Manager in preparing mail merge documents to customers, updating and replenishing housing stock details, updating the office database, ensuring office window displays were kept up to date, actioning price changes and new instructions - ensuring interested parties were notified, dealing with incoming/outgoing post, maintaining vendor records and ensuring they were contacted every three weeks with updates regarding their property. I also ordered For Sale boards, and attended daily team meetings.

I was employed by Emelia Accessories as a Warehouse Operative, working as part of a team of around twenty employees. My duties included unloading containers, organizing/storing stock into coded areas and preparing sales orders for distribution to retail outlets.

During my two weeks work experience at the Hilton Hotel, I worked in various departments including the restaurant, Catering & Banqueting, Café Chino and Human Resources. I gained experience in waitering, logging and filing application and order forms, as well as how a café and restaurant are managed. Additionally, I gained an insight into how conferences are organized. This work combined the application of academic and practical skills.