Since 2016 we have worked with Liverpool John Moores University to provide an intern placement for their Marketing and Business Studies students. Ella was the fourth intern that we’ve had, and joined us in the middle of a global pandemic. Luckily for Ella, life at Bullens continued as normal during all the lockdowns, so she was able to get the full experience of working in an office. Something many of her course mates weren’t able to as their internships were all working from home. We asked Ella to write something about her year with us, as she headed off for a well deserved holiday to France. Ella isn’t leaving us totally, she’s going to be working here part time when she goes back to Uni. We now have a new intern called Dan who is busy learning the ropes.
I have now officially worked at Bullen for a year and completed my marketing internship, the year has gone really fast and it is hard to comprehend how much I have learnt in such a small amount of time. It’s hard to teach what I have learnt in a professional environment, and I have loved getting stuck in with the work at Bullen and now have a wealth of experience and new skills to take back to university with me for the final year of my degree.
Before working here, my knowledge of stoma and urology care was very limited and to be completely honest I wasn’t 100% sure what a DAC was. This is definitely not true now! I have found it so intriguing learning about stoma and urology care and now feel like I know the industry and how it works really well.
I have learnt so many new skills in the last 12 months from social media to stoma deodorants! Coming into this role, one of the skills I wanted to develop the most was communication. Through planning the social media, new marketing campaigns and partaking in lots of meetings I can safely say my communication skills have improved.
As our marketing team is relatively small, I have been able to be involved in a real variety of projects. One of my favourite projects to be a part of is the CCG marketing. It has been an invaluable experience to look into the business to business strategies, be a part of working on tenders and even help mobilise an NHS service. I have loved learning about that aspect of the industry and seeing the company grow as a result of all of the hard work that was put in.
Another task I have enjoyed was learning all about the CRM, when I first started I didn’t have a clue how to do anything with our CRM. This all changed thanks to a successful facemask campaign not long after I started. When thousands of leads came our way I was thrown into the deep end! To be fair this was probably the best way to learn. Looking back it is amazing to think how much my skills have developed, I would not be able to get this kind of experience sitting in a class rooms and understanding how a CRM works is something I will need throughout my whole career.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience working within the marketing team at Bullen and would recommend this internship to other students looking to gain marketing experience. I am excited now to get back to university and finish my degree so I can apply all of the knowledge I have gained from working at Bullen into my final year. I would not have enjoyed my experience at Bullen half as much as I did if it wasn’t the people I was lucky enough to work with. With most of the year being spent in and out of lockdowns I loved being able to come into work every day and have a laugh with the team.
Even though I’m leaving the marketing team, I am going to carry on working at Bullen part time whilst I continue with my studies so much to their disappointment they haven’t completely got rid of me yet!