My experience as an intern at BitBox
From as early as my first day to the end of my summer experience at the business, I felt welcomed and like I was part of a team. This was not how I expected my summer work to go, and I was pleasantly surprised.
Over the summer holidays, it is common for students to look for summer jobs to pay the bills, or for the experience, and this was no different for me. After a month of looking for jobs and not deciding whether to work in Basingstoke or live in my university town and work there. Eventually, in June, I saw a Facebook post asking for students who were interested in summer work in Basingstoke, so I went for it. My fist real contact with the business was an interview on site with Quentin, the Managing Director. This was due to my eventual manager, Chris, being on paternity leave for a few weeks during the interview process. At the time, I did not know that Quentin was the managing director, however, he came across as normal as any other employee. There was no sense that he was ‘above me’ as one might expect when meeting the head of a business. His friendly attitude was certainly a factor that made me feel like this was the role for me, without really knowing what the role would even entail.
On my first day I arrived I was greeted with smiling faces with my new team. I met sales manager, Chris Chaney, who is also my manager; sales executive, Simeon Halloway; Quotations manager Karen Hayworth, who’s desk I took (sorry Karen!) and Tonya Phillips, the Key account manager. All of them greeted me with kindness and immediately I felt part of the team. I started off sitting in on the day’s internal meetings and beginning to get a feel for what went on in the average day as well as starting to learn what role I would start to play in the business
Over the following week, I took part in more of the weekly meetings and started to meet more people inside and outside the company that work with BitBox. This included our weekly marketing meeting with our external marketing company, who’d id be working with directly in my position. It was made clear that I would focus on the marketing of the business as well as some internal communications, including taking ownership of the social media presence and other related jobs. Even in this first week I realised that although the role was still technically only an intern position, I could take a much more active role than I had thought. This wouldn’t have been possible without the support of numerous people at BitBox, who allowed me to flesh out some of my own ideas and allow me to bring my own skills and differences to the business.
Over the next few months I really feel like I took an active role in the business, taking control of a large proposal document overhaul, which took a lot of time internally and externally to finish to a near perfect state, a website update, which required input from many different people so that it could be just right and some projects that I thought could add to our marketing presence such as an intern specific article and a key accounts surprise and delight system. On top of all of this, I even got to spend some time with the engineering department, throughout my time at BitBox, working on a project of my own. With the engineering team supporting me along the way with their extensive knowledge and experience.
Leading on from this, my time at BitBox would never have been as positive of an experience it was without all those, I spent time talking to, working with and generally spending time around. From the initial interactions with the sales teams to the wider interactions with the senior management team and production, engineering and purchasing teams, I couldn’t have felt more like an active member of the company. Specifically, those who I worked closest with were Chris and Simeon, who definitely made a difference to my time here, as well as Matt, head of hardware engineering, for taking time out of his busy schedule to help with my project. There are countless other people in all the different teams who dedicated time out of their schedules to help me and I cannot thank everyone enough for this.
In the future, I have been invited back to spend time with BitBox again next summer, as well as being offered a part time position within to company while at university which I happily accepted. I feel as though my time at BitBox was not just an amazing steppingstone into learning how a business works but has also opened up some potential career paths for me.
All in all, my journey at BitBox will stay with me for a long time due to the life skills, business experience and the people I met there. I couldn’t recommend it more to anyone looking to work here or simply complete an internship here too as you truly are nurtured while here.
If you have any questions about my time at BitBox please email: owhatley@bitbox.co.uk
Unlock the Secrets to a Profitable OEM Strategy!
Dive into our FREE PDF guide and discover strategies that can transform your OEM purchasing. From strategic foresight to risk management, get insights that set you apart.