Initially I expected this paper to be challenging and fun, yet a little scary. I was looking forwardto completing some professional work experience on an e-commerce related topic as it had the potential to be a great learning curve with unlimited opportunity. Actually approaching a suitable company to work for was what I expected to be the scariest part, especially when it came to selling my skills for such a professional position. However these fears and earlier predictions were shortly outlived as the manager of Wave decided "yes" to my position once he received my introductory e-mail. In regards to securing a position, I realised that there was nothing to worry about, as companies are actually very happy to have educated e-commerce students apply their skills to their business!

 

To increase your chances of getting a position, make sure that you are ready to tell the company about the role you would like to take and what you are capable of doing for them. In my case, Wave wasn't too sure about what I could do to help them so I came up with a few suggestions and a role emerged from there.

 

Excluding the initial contact with a potential company, I expected that this course was going to be easy from here on in. Wave did not have high expectations of my capabilities, as I feared they would, and I completed work that met and exceeded these expectations.

 

The weekly updates required for the course assessment are brief evaluations about you, the company and the position. The large report is also a large evaluation about the experiences, the position, the company culture, performance and other elements of the industry experience and chosen research topics. I expect that the additional research topics will provide me with a reason to learn about certain e-commerce topics which will significantly enhance my skills and understanding.

 

This course has the potential to be a great experience or it could be a bad one. It depends on how you apply yourself to it and what you want to get out of it. The opportunity is there and I recommend it.

 

 

 

The BECom industry experience process is a chance for students to experience the realities of commercial work, job-hunting process, and the skills necessary to succeed once an position is acquired.

 

My job was sourced out of the 219 job-posting list provided by the Department. I contacted the organisation arranged an interview time via e-mail and then went about preparing for the interview. This meant ensuring that I presented myself in the most professional manner possible from being dressed appropriately, to having done background research on the company, prepared copies of my CV for them to take with them, and ensuring that I arrived early for the interview.

 

The interview itself consisted of 3 people from the company, the general manager, the person who would be my direct supervisor and another person who may have had some input into the project I would undertake. They proceeded to tell me about themselves and their roles and then I had the opportunity to explain about my background and what I hoping to achieve in the BECom. They then discussed the project they wished me to undertake and asked for my immediate contributions in terms of initial thoughts which I was happy to provide - its important to think fast in situations like this, delivering clear accurate responses to questions displaying the knowledge you have picked up in courses and through monitoring the industry environment.

 

The job itself covered research into setting up online digital photo libraries. The company required me to produce a basic HTML based prototype and a report so it wasn't a very technical role, the most challenging aspects were dealing with organisational issues such as company politics and the difficulties in dealing with a client that changes their mind about what they want halfway through the project. The highlights of the experience were working in an organisation on the leading edge of developing and implementing online learning environments, and evaluating cutting edge technologies.

 

Important things to remember for students; don't wait for the organisation to come to you, go out and actively seek the jobs, when in the job continually ask "Am I doing enough, is this what you expect of me?" and ensure that you maintain links with the organisation because they could be a valuable reference or testimonial source regarding work habits that your first 'real' employer may look closely at.

 

 

 

 

My personal experience of industry experience placement has resulted in an ongoing friendship with my mentor which his experience has helped in many other courses.

 

Going through the process of applying for positions posted was interesting! I had applied for a number of positions, had an interview with The Warehouse (subsequently the position did not proceed) and when I thought I wouldn't find a position a man came to see me about buying my car. We got talking and well to cut a long story short he was setting up a company that was developing "a world first software program to correct lens distortion" what has this got to do with e-commerce? Well we thought of lots of things, they wanted to launch a site, provide online ordering and download of the program and provide a secure payment environment.

 

So how could they help me? What they really wanted was for me to help them! They needed what I knew about e-commerce to satisfy a gap in their experience. The company of five, who were working out of one of the director's homes, provided me with the opportunity to conduct research for the business plan to submit to investors. This meant I had to do a lot of research; marketing, competitor analysis, products, opportunities. It was a long process and I had never done anything like this before. My research was going to be used for an important document so it had to be good and right, that was a bit of pressure to begin with. I mainly interacted with my mentor but attended meetings with all directors on different occasions. This position was part-time and fairly self-managed and I usually completed set work in the weekend and evenings (my choice to work in the weekend). Guidance was great, if I didn't get the info they required, they told me, and I started again (with some ideas from the team). I also visited web site designers with my Mentor as they wanted someone to build a site (beyond my capabilities and time frame), this was great as I learnt a lot from the designer about web site structure and hosting. You never know what you're going to learn on industry experience.

 

I was able to also tie in my research areas into my work as the company needed to know what they should include in their site (just to keep the web designer honest and sound intelligent when providing specifications). They were also interested in payment systems and the options available for customers to purchase products online.

 

Overall my experience was very rewarding; I met some interesting people and have kept in touch, so my industry experience didn't only provide me with another credit towards my degree but a valuable contact for other courses and the future.

 

Tracey has completed her degree and looks forward to putting the theory and experiences from the e-commerce degree into real world situations.