My blog about practical work in Altek by Daniil Semenov

In October 2020, I started looking for a practical job to gain experience, credits and new connections. I had been looking for an internship in Finland for a long time, but unfortunately I never got it, so my search circle narrowed down to my native country – Russia.

I understood that practice was needed primarily for the purpose of gaining experience, not money, so I decided to choose the options that were interesting to me, even if they were without hourly pay.  Altek, whose head office is located in Moscow, Russia, turned out to be an excellent choice. 

My experience started with getting a job. In Russia, this process sometimes takes less and sometimes more time due to the long processing of documents. 

I was lucky enough to get a job at Altek, a company engaged in the warehousing and transportation of goods from a warehouse.  On the first day I met the head of the company. He connected me with my colleagues and my HR manager agreed on all the points of my resume and outlined the basic rules of the company and the required amount of work. 

During the first month, I was given the opportunity to learn the basics of work, participate in business negotiations and even close one deal. I was introduced to the names of the warehouse, the goods and the main suppliers. 

After a week of training and familiarisation with the corporate spirit of the company, I got used to it a little and started full-fledged work.  

My responsibilities included many items that I wanted to try and asked the head of the company about it in order to maximize the result from practical work. 

Officially my duties included: 

-management of economic and operational aspects of the functioning of warehouses owned by the company; 

-management of internal logistics in terms of receiving and storing goods, materials and equipment, inventory, complaints and refunds;

-budgeting, customer service management, management of the operational part of the warehouse activities;

-primary accounting. Reception, control and processing of primary documentation

(invoices, cash registers, personnel documents, contracts with contractors, etc.) 

Also, once a month I helped to calculate wages, document payments under civil contracts, personal income tax. 

The most difficult and “scary” of all tasks were SAP system monitoring and optimisation and tax and management accounting, namely preparation and submission of tax reports to the funds of the Russian Federation and the tax inspectorate.  

Every time I sent the documents to the tax inspectorate, I double-checked everything several times so as not to create a problem for the company and for myself regarding the criminal administrative code.  

I concluded that the tax inspectorate in Russia is a complex, multifunctional institution that is not to be trifled with. The amount of documentation sent to this company exceeded all my expectations. I had no idea that doing business in Russia could carry so much responsibility, sometimes even an excessive burden on the part of the state and the tax inspectorate as a whole. 

But, on the other hand, the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle! 

Due to the pandemic, I worked remotely, 2-5 hours a day, from November 2020 to August 2021. 

I liked this job because I was able to learn a lot of new things, met interesting and amazing people, understood the structure and actions of the company by a practical example.   I would like to express my gratitude to my colleagues, the employer, and the whole company for a good mood, excellent work experience, interesting cases, unforeseen situations and often magical solutions to these problems. 

Good luck to everyone who has read this blog and is looking for a job!

Author: Daniil Semenov