It's a Friday afternoon and having had a productive week I thought it would be a great way to finish off with another blog entry. I can't believe how much time has flown since my last entry. Ahhhh I remember it well. Back then I was a bright eyed and bushy tailed first-year graduate taking my shaky first steps into the wonderful world of Grocery Field Sales. Now all of a sudden I've been in my second role for five months and three great new graduates have started this week, which makes me a second-year! Having discussed this with the other graduates in my year we are all in agreement that we don't feel anywhere near experienced enough to be buddying a new intake of graduates! It certainly does put things in perspective though and looking back we've all come a long way.
The transition from field sales into the office has been a challenging one. On a day-to-day basis the two roles really couldn't be any more different and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't somewhat of a culture shock. However I really value the time I spent in field sales and I firmly believe that there is no better introduction to the business.
My new role is in Consumer Marketing as an Assistant Brand Manager working on our permissible indulgence agenda. It's a really exciting place to be as it's very much in line with the consumer trend towards health and wellbeing. As a fitness fanatic this is something that's very close to my heart!
Since starting five months ago I've had a really wide range of experience and more autonomy than I could ever have dreamed of. I suppose I have become something of a dark chocolate specialist, having implemented the launch of a new dark chocolate product and shaped the strategy for dark chocolate in 2008. However, I've also had the chance to work on cereal bars and beverages, which means that I've had an interesting day today trying to work out how to sample hot beverages at a sales conference next week. Who knew preparing a hot drink for hundreds of people could turn into a full-scale military operation?!
I just wanted to say a big welcome to the three new graduates starting and best of luck to everyone out there thinking of applying. The Cadbury graduate recruitment tour will be coming to a university near you so come over and say hello if you see us!
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