Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Julie Thiessen - Apparel Summer Internship Part 3


Knowledge and Skills:                          

Throughout my internship, the activities and experiences that I participated in allowed me to gain all sorts of knowledge and skills. I was also required to attend training programs on various micro-strategy planning tools, and IPR selling strategy tools. In addition, I also attended training classes on retail math and excel and the Kmart program, Workbench. Sears also has a merchant learning platform called Learn Your Way which I was required to utilize and take courses. The courses I took were: Shop Your Way, Legal Advertising Guidelines for Marketing, Introduction to the Item Maintenance Application, Excel Macros, Excel Pivot Tables, Excel V-Lookups, and Global Compliance.

I was given intern goals at the beginning of my internship. These were basically one on one experiences that I was scheduled through my outlook calendar with my Head Buyer. During these periods I was taught the basics about the aspects of apparel buying. Either my Head Buyer or the Assistant Buyer would usually be the ones teaching me.

Overall, I thought that this field study was an incredible learning experience. I learned almost every aspect of apparel buying and was given a chance to experience the processes hands on. I learned which parts that I enjoy and which parts that I do not. I know what I need to do to improve my knowledge and skills relating to the field.

Skills:                                                                                    

Advertising
Best Sells
IPR Selling
Monday Morning Reporting
Our Customer
MSP’s
Buying Sheet
Orders/Wings
Vendor Negotiating
AMC Pricing
Season Forecasting
Sample Management
Item Management
Markdown Strategies
Market Trends

Ending Notes:

I think that this academic year will provide me with more personal direction to which field of apparel that I wish to pursue. With more exposure in my classes and more projects to work on, by the end of the year I will be able to make a decision whether apparel buying is the field I wish to enter, or apparel product development. Going into this summer I applied to both Buying and Apparel Product Development internships. I was not sure which direction I wanted to aim towards and hoped that the internship would help with my decision. In terms of my future career, I am still undecided.

I was able to learn a lot about the apparel industry and career opportunities through my interviews with current employees and past graduates of the six month BAP (Buyer apprentice) program. I learned about the process that most employees went through in order to get to their current jobs. They offered tips and suggestions to getting the dream job I might want. In general, I learned that each retail corporation does their apparel buying a little differently. A lot of employees at Sears have come from other department stores or companies. I learned that doing a training program for buying carries a lot of weight when applying for full time positions. Also, each company uses different programs so it is crucial to have strong analytical and technological skills.

In regards to my experience with the company, I do not believe that Sears was a good fit for me.  Moving forward, I plan on applying to full-time jobs both in apparel buying and product development.

 

 

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