Practical Training in London – Part 2

My name is Inka Lukkari and this is my story about my second stint of practical training in London, United Kingdom. I did my first practical training in a small legal tech start up, for my second round of practical training I decided to something a bit different. I did this round of practical training with a multinational company that specialises in digital transformation. I did my practical training in the company’s talent acquisition team as a talent acquisition coordinator.

During the training I gained a lot of experience that is quite valuable. First of all, I had the privilege to work for a big company that operates in multiple countries, which meant that I got a lot of international exposure and I got to see what the day-to-day operations look like; what are the issues and what’s good about working for a big company. I also got to work with a broad range of stakeholders, during my training I worked with people from all levels, from junior associates to vice presidents. Dealing with a broad range of people taught me a lot about stakeholder management and it also presented a great opportunity for networking within the company.

The biggest thing I used to work on from week to week was coordination of high-volume interview days which took place every Friday. During the hiring days we would run an assessment centre and facilitate around 10-20 interview processes in one day. The interview days required a lot of work: there was the coordination of the actual interviews and the practical event arrangements to make sure that everything runs smoothly. The interview coordination required a lot of resources and our team was responsible for planning the interview schedule 8 weeks in advance. Overseeing the candidate experience was also a big part of the role as we wanted to make sure that candidates have a good experience with us, even if they’re not offered a role at the end of the interview process.

In addition to TA coordination I also got to work on onboarding related tasks. When it came to onboarding, my tasks were focused around creating contracts, answering new starter queries, initiating background checks, and onboarding new starters before company-wide start dates. I also got to do some work on visa and relocation cases which I found quite interesting.

My second practical training experience was quite eye-opening especially since I did my first practical training in a very small company. It was interesting to see how the company size influences how the day-to-day operations run and how people deal with each other within the company. I’m very happy that I got an opportunity to work for a company that taught me a lot and I hope to learn more as my employment continues.

Author: Inka Lukkari