Congratulations to Richard who recently finished an industrial placement at the tech giant Amazon. Based in Edinburgh, Richard was placed in the operational department in order to improve the efficiency of the firm’s European services. Initially, he was tasked with automating the distribution of various reports to different warehouses located around the EU. From there, Richard went on to produce a few reports on a regular basis and automated several others. These reports told hiring managers how many employees each warehouse needed at a certain time in the year allowing managers to employ the exact number of staff that would be affordable and not sacrifice the performance of the warehouse.
Richard’s weekly reports were received by 50 different teams based in 8 different countries. From the very beginning of his placement, Amazon gave Richard responsibility and tasks that had an observable impact upon the running of the business. Within his department there was an energy that drove people to work quickly and accurately in order to meet weekly deadlines and turn projects around at speed. New ideas were thought up one week and then put into practice the next. There was an autonomy to the work that was quite surprising given the size of the company. Furthermore, despite this drive to meet weekly objectives, all of Richard’s colleagues would make time for him be it for a coffee catch-up or to help him with a report.
Due to his fantastic performance, Amazon offered to keep Richard on part time while he completes his studies at King’s College London with the potential to enrol on a graduate scheme of theirs after he has finished university. During our catch-up, Richard offered some application tips for future applicants to Amazon:
- Be yourself: companies are typically looking for a cultural fit, therefore, while you need some technical knowledge, an application process is more about testing whether you fit with the company, this is why you should be yourself so that you get matched with a company that suits you!
- Brush up on technical skills: you should have an awareness of Excel, Python and SQL no matter what data job you’re applying to.
- Don’t get overstressed: regardless of whether its Amazon or a smaller company you shouldn’t get stressed during the application process. Find ways to destress if you can.
