H A Y S T R A V E L G R A D U A T E S C H E M E KATHRYN ARMSTRONG
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WORST THING ABOUT YOUR JOB: I think everyone in Head Office has been feeling the pressure since the end of September and it has been an absolute rollercoaster. However, the payoff has been incredible and we have gained the most amazing experiences. It’s good to be kept busy right!? WHAT DO YOU ENJOY DOING OUTSIDE OF WORK: I enjoy making the most of how cheap it is to eat and drink in the North East and by living in Newcastle I’m definitely making the most of it! I come from a very pretty seaside town in Northern Ireland so when there is a break in the rain clouds I take myself to the coast for some sea air and of course some fish and chips. HOPES FOR YOUR CAREER FUTURE: Over the next two years I hope to have made a real difference to the departments that I am placed in and leave my mark on the national media stage for Hays Travel. I would love to stay in the travel industry and develop my PR and marketing skills. I am also very interested in sustainable, eco-tourism as well as political tourism and I think this is something that is just going to grow and become more important to customers in the coming years so I would love to get involved in this somewhere along the line.
the time has flown ever since! I have now spent four months with the IG department and then I will be moving on somewhere else in January. WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING ON SO FAR: Prior to the collapse of Thomas Cook, I had been working with the IG department developing a PR strategy to engage with current IG members and homeworkers and also to try and attract new members. However, things changed slightly after the collapse of Thomas Cook. I was originally drafted in to help the Homeworker Recruitment team deal with the influx of applications that they had received. But then, on the 9th of October when the news broke that Hays Travel would take over all the Thomas Cook branches, I and my fellow grads become the Hays Travel press team. Since then, we have been dealing with all the major national media enquiries as well as writing press releases for branches old and new to publish in their local newspapers. We had the amazing opportunity to speak at this year’s retail conference in front of over 600 Hays Travel retail managers. The reception we got was incredible and I can’t thank everyone enough for responding so positively to us. BEST THING ABOUT YOUR JOB: The best thing about this job is I have been exposed to so many different opportunities and pushed out of my comfort zone so much already. We have been given so much responsibility and ownership from such an early stage and I really feel trusted. I really appreciate how involved both John and Irene have been and how our opinions have been taken into consideration and valued from the day we joined.
AGE: 22.
DEGREE SUBJECT: Geography and Urban Planning.
UNIVERSITY: Newcastle University.
DEPARTMENT: Independence Group.
WHAT MADE YOU APPLY TO THE HAYS GRADUATE SCHEME: I applied because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do when I finished university and I liked the idea of a rotational programme in a big company. I love travel and it is an industry that I was really interested in. It was also one of the very few graduate roles that didn’t require heaps of relevant work experience and wasn’t based in London!
HOW DID YOU FIND THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS:
The hardest part of my experience was flying back and forth from Northern Ireland for interviews! The actual recruitment process wasn’t too bad! We had to do an assessment day which included a business simulation, a presentation and an interview and then we got invited back for a final interview with Irene Hays.
WHEN DID YOU START: I started on the last week of July and
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