Commercial School Leaver Review

Job Title: Commerical School Leaver - Product Assistant Role In my job role I work within the Product Planning department, looking after Ibiza, Menorca, Majorca & Weddings. Every day is different in this department but some of my daily tasks tend to be picking up queries for my areas, checking content and getting new imagery loaded for my hotels, tracking the quality of our key hotels or underperforming hotels and analysing sales reports to look where we can make improvements. I report into my line manager every day who is the Product Manager for the Balearics & Weddings so we're always on the same page. On a daily basis my internal interactions will usually be within the product planning team, the Short-Haul team which is the pod of desks i sit on. I also tend to liase quite alot with trading, purchasing, inventory and the weddings sales team in Coventry. My external communications tend to be from TUI Destination services who now look after weddings, so i need to communicate with them on a daily basis when i need new wedding contracts creating, as well as them there's also quite a lot of communication between the product planning team and the in resort team as we will quite often get customer queries that we can't specifically answer we count on them to be able to advise us accordingly. The great thing about my role is that you're given alot of responsibility but not without a fantastic support system behind you if you ever need help, or are unsure of what you need to do next. I've been given a lot of responsibility over the past few months one i especially enjoyed was creating a Launch Document for weddings which is a document which is sent out to the wider business to engage and inform them what new destinations we're introducing for the next season, what new and exciting things we have going on and a general over view of our success over the past year. You also get the chance to delve into the project side of things, so this year the TUI Placements and School leavers both came together to put on a fantastic Charity Project which i think really developed everyones communication and team work skills. I have also had the chance to do solo projects so i am currently working on looking at a new short-haul destination that we can operate during the winter months and carrying out stage 1 research at the moment. Another little project that i did at the beginning of the year was to look at the Menorca resort strategy which enabled me to get a better understanding of market share and how we shape up against other companies and look at areas where there's a possibility of growth.

I have learnt many new skills in the short time i've been working at TUI and they are not only skills that i can apply to the role i'm in now, but to any job i do in the future and life in general. As a school leaver you have priority over any one else when signing up for certain courses. At TUI there is a programme called the TODP which hosts a range of different courses so you can learn a little more about departments you don't work in I have so far been on the Product Planning, Yield Management Course and have just signed up to the Product development course - but it's a great way to give you an understanding of how other departments work in the space of a few hours. We also have a BeSpecial week where you can sign up to a huge range of different acitivity and development days where again you can go and learn about different parts of the business. This I really enjoyed as I got the chance to go to 'A Day in the life of a pilot' and Aviation planning which was really interesting - and i was so interested Aviation planning i arranged to go and spend a morning in their department a few weeks after! I have also been really encouraged by my managers to go and spend mornings/days in departments that are of interest to me. This year i have spent a day in Content as i'm really interested in design, an afternoon in after travel, a morning in aviation planning and a morning in marketing I have also dveloped my own skills this year in a lot of areas but one thing i absolutely wanted to develop was being able to talk in front of large groups of people confidently. I have presented to early trading and the whole of the product team about weddings and getting good feedback after gave me a real confidence boost and i would definitely feel confident doing it again.

Work: I absolutely love what I get to do for work every day is different, and there's some challenges but it's such a good feeling when you manage to over come them Team: The whole team is absolutely fantastic, you're never made to feel stupid whatever question you're asking and everyone's really supportive of each other - it makes it a really nice enviroment to work in Company Culture: As i worked in a big company before you can just see that TUI stands out from the rest. Working at TUI, I feel as though all employees are treated extremly well in all aspects and i feel very lucky to be working for a company who does so as it's quite rare to come by Expectations: It by far exceeded my expectations, and can honestly say since i've started never had that feeling on a Monday morning 'I don't want to go to work' feeling

I feel very appreciated and valued by my manager, we make sure we have regular catch ups to see my progress. I also did a piece of work my manager was really happy with and got given a £20 shopping vouce from our BeRewarded system that made me feel really good abotu what i'd done! I also won product superstar of the month which was really nice because it shows your good work does get recognised!

The scheme is extremely well ogranised, and you will recieve all the inductions and training on any thing that you will need to use in your day to day role. The support from your managers, team and also the people who look after the scheme is also amazing you will always have someone to turn to if you have any worries or questions about your work. Whilst on the scheme you will also be assigned a mentor - i feel i've really benefitted from this as it's someone in senior role from treading so you get to discuss other things than what you're doing in work and again it's someone you can go to for advice if you have any worries. Another thing i was worried about when i started was that i'd be stuck under a pile of work, but of course when you start no ones going to through you in at the deep end - you're eased in very gently and are not forced to do certain tasks if you aren't 100% comfortable with doing them. If you aren't unsure of what do everyone is always happy to take you through it and show you.

You don't only get support from the people who run the scheme but pretty much every body that you work with. Everyone always has time to explain things to you if you can't quite understand them.

I recieve a huge amound of support from my manager always making sure to check in with me and make sure i'm ok with everything and whether i need any support on the work im doing

As i still live at home my i have a lot more disposable income than those who may live on their own, so it's fine for me. I think if someone lived on their own and had to commute on the train their pay each month wouldn't stretch that far

There's lots you can involved with out side of work, such as the work christmas parties, netball clubs, you can also sign up to do a day where you help out in the local community this includes things like painting homeless shelters, and gardening communal areas.

Yes

It's an amazing company to work for and it really helps to develop you in all areas!

1 )Application Process - Don't just give top line answers you want to include everything you possibly can and also give examples where you have shown leadership for example 2 ) Interviews - Take your time to digest the question and then answer it, if you don't quite understand it dont worry let them know and they'll probably try and rephrase it for you. Make sure you've done your research on the company as these questions are bound to come up, so make sure you know our brands, what you think the aim of our company is and why would you like to work here 3) Assessment Day - This is the only time you'll get to really make yourself stand out against others so put your best foot forward, make sure you ask loads of questions and if someone needs to volunteer to present make sure you put yourself forward. There's also one more thing thats vitally important on assessment day and that's to be yourself!