What is work experience like at Aico?

Hello everyone! My name is Charlotte and I’ve been at Aico for five full days to gain some work experience. I am seventeen years old and study at The Marches Sixth Form, in year 13.

Seeing the Aico building and having initial awareness of the company came with my daily travels to school each day, passing the building. I first spoke to members of the Aico team personally at a careers fair hosted at The Marches School. My initial impressions were incredibly positive, I talked with Jane Pritchard (Community Liaison), which I didn’t fully realise was the first step into opening the doors of work experience and opportunity at the time.

When I came for a tour a few weeks prior to my work experience placement, I noticed a very welcoming ambience and was blown away by the facilities and modern office working environment. The attention to detail, cooperation and collaboration is undoubtably evident.

As for my time at Aico, having a hands on workload has been incredibly beneficial on multiple levels. I have been fortunate to participate in a triple header of internal events including tasks such as meeting clients, helping events run smoothly, hospitality and educating customers on what Aico do to create safer homes and benefit the community.

I think that the reason why Aico stood out to me was because of the keenness that they shared with me to take opportunities as they come. Additionally, I shared similar views towards their apprenticeships programmes and have talked to new and past apprentices about their journeys which has been one of the most influential parts of my experience at Aico. I was even able to discuss the external aspects of the company through meetings with Regional Specification Managers, which helped lots and is definitely something that I’ll be looking for when planning my future career path.

I have had multiple 1:1 sessions with almost every colleague at Aico, having a trial run in each department, as well as discussing their job roles, ambitions and past experiences which has boosted my knowledge of what is available to me. There is so much freedom and flexibility to find which area stands out to you,  just a few sectors I’ve experienced are the warehouse, sustainability, sales, finance, product design, IT, technical and CSR. I have also had the privilege of working with Marketing which has helped me to see that this is the sector I feel most likely to succeed in and can envision myself pursuing a career in. For instance, the Marketing team have given me research tasks regarding upcoming TV advert releases and social media posts.

I mentioned my passion for Media and film, and this was met by me being given complete access to the fully equipped filming studio, with tutorials and advice from Matt Powell (Marketing Executive) which has been incredibly useful and something that I can apply to both my current and future studies and work. Featuring with Jane on Aico TV has undoubtably been one of the many highlights of my work experience, as I got to experience being in front of the camera lens instead of behind it which was completely new and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

One of the main things that I’ve taken away from this experience is the amount of variety and rarity that I wouldn’t have had otherwise at other work experience placements. I would highly recommend for any students to get involved with Aico and their work experience programme if possible.