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Graduate Trainee - Business
We are recruiting as usual – but with Covid restrictions. We have ONE place open on the graduate scheme, starting soon.
Read this page and apply now with a COVERING LETTER if you are interested.
Not sure what you want to do with your degree?
Our Graduate Training Programme will give you a broad taste of all areas of commerce, in a small business setting. Get the experience you need to build a career you’ll love.
By the end of our scheme, you’ll be able to operate and grow a small business.
Choosing a career and discovering what journey you want to follow is not easy. The truth of the matter is that you’ll only find out through experience and that’s what you’ll get from our Graduate scheme.
Expert Labels is a small company. We fully accept that might put off some people, but many people realise the unique benefits you get when you work in a small organisation.
Bigger is (not always) better
Places on large, corporate training programmes are highly sought after, but working in a small, growing business like ours has unique advantages:
- You’re a big cog in a small machine – your voice is heard and you get a say.
- You can affect big change. The projects you work on can make a disproportionate difference to a small business and to your work.
- In a small business you’re not just a number. In big business, a corporate restructure could, through no fault of yours, mean your number comes up and your job disappears.
- Counter-intuitively, you get paid more in small business – if you’re a top performer. You’re not locked into pay grade progression and hierarchies. Great employees get paid what they’re worth – small business can’t afford to lose top performers.
- We’re flexible and nimble and don’t follow cumbersome, corporate policies. This means we can adapt to your ideas, needs and those of our customers in a way big corporates can’t.
Millions of Opportunities
If you believe opportunities in a small business are limited, consider this:
- In 2019, 99.3% of businesses in the UK employed fewer than fifty people.
- A graduate leaving the Expert Labels Graduate Training Scheme will have more than a million other opportunities in businesses just like ours if they choose.
- Small companies feel uncomfortable hiring people with big business experience – they want people with small business experience who understand them.
That’s not to say we want you to leave – we want your talents for years into the future – but we understand the security of having employment options.
About Expert Labels
Our reason for existing is to help people identify things. That’s what labels do.
Expert Labels have been around since 1994 helping customers all over the UK (and a handful overseas) to:
- Print labels and scan barcodes to collect data.
- Present their products with beautiful eye-catching labels.
- Design and implement labelling systems that gather data and print using specialist label printers.
- Use labels with sustainable and biodegradable materials.
- Build robust processes to ensure our clients never run out of labels and ink.
- Use our knowledge to help our clients use advanced labelling technology (QR codes and NFC tags) to engage with their customers.
- Help clients to use their printers and software to design labels.
Now we are poised to grow and we need high quality people like you who want to learn how to run and grow a business.
Your Colleagues
People are what makes work enjoyable. The team here at Expert Labels are here to help you learn and develop as quickly as possible. With over 100 years (that’s human years – not dog years) of work experience – there’s a lot you can learn.
We believe in family and life outside work – but when we’re at work we are hard-working, reliable and conscientious.
Our culture is one of mutual respect, learning and experimentation. We’re relaxed and flexible – keen to support you, safe in the knowledge that you have the best interests of our business at heart.
Another key success factor is a team that is open and honest where everyone’s voice is heard.
Graduate Scheme Placements
Placements are based at our office in Suffolk. All four placements are full-time and last around six months – a total of two years.
All graduates start with six months in commercial services. Here you’ll learn about our products and suppliers, put together quotes and process orders, so you can run the day to day operations of the business.
This is the heart of our business – working with customers, understanding products and dealing with suppliers. From here you gain a firm grounding in the business – providing the knowledge needed for future roles on the graduate scheme.
“The good thing about the commercial role is seeing an enquiry go from call through to samples to quoting and on to completion. You get to help the client throughout the project – and at the end of it they’re really happy with the difference it makes to their business.”
The next stage is Business Development. During the BD phase of the programme you will build upon the commercial experience you have gained with clients and suppliers.
The key parts of the role include communicating with existing clients, identifying opportunities and managing the fulfilment of those opportunities.
In conjunction with client contact, time will be spent with suppliers understanding their capabilities so these can be applied to new products.
During the BD phase you’ll begin to spend time working with marketing – on campaigns to new customers.
After six months you will help train your successor on the BD role. Once your successor is ready to transition, you will start work on the marketing phase of the programme.
“What I like about the business development role is being able to work more closely with select customers. Go out and see them, build a relationship and really get to know them and what they are trying to do.”
With intimate knowledge of clients and products from your BD and Commercial placements – you’re superbly equipped to generate leads and develop our brand during your six-month placement in Marketing.
The key parts of this role include identifying new markets, implementing promotional plans and writing content that touches new customers.
The marketing role includes the analysis of data from our website and marketing efforts.
A big part of the DNA of Expert Labels is experimentation. During your marketing placement you’ll develop ideas and execute marketing experiments to test your hypothesis.
After six months you will help train your successor. Once your successor is ready to transition, you will start work on the operations phase of the programme.
“The best thing about the marketing placement is watching the results of your campaigns come to life”
After your successor starts in Marketing you will start providing operational support and professional services for clients. This part of the scheme relies on the intimate product knowledge you’ll have built up over the previous 18 months.
During this phase, you’ll be providing your clients with tremendous value by supporting them in house and by setting up systems on site that they come to rely on.
This role includes creating online resources to help clients use the products and services we provide. You’ll work with our label service customers and manage their label printing and set up systems to manage the procurement and distribution of their products.
Other professional service work includes planning software and service installations, implementing integration projects to connect client databases to labelling systems and delivering training on-site or remotely.
You’ll undertake labelling audits and print labels for clients in house.
“This placement is perhaps more varied than the other ones. One day you can be giving tech support to a customer, the next day, out doing training, then making a video to show the team how to do a particular task. No two days are the same.”
One of the most valuable tasks in a business is recruiting excellent new team members.
Throughout the four stages of the Graduate Scheme you’ll be involved in the training and recruitment of new people. This might be keeping track of job applicants, assessing applications, working with interns or interviewing and assessing potential new team members. You might help with contacting universities and managing the internship programme.
When applying – use reference GTB2021 on your covering letter.
Social Opportunities
We believe the strength of a team depends on the personal bonds between team members. We also understand that ideas and improvements come about through chance encounters away from the desk.
To encourage these chance encounters, we enjoy regular opportunities to socialise.
Projects
Projects give you a chance to make a long term contribution to our business – in parallel to your day-to-day work. Not only that, you’ll have some excellent material to add to your CV. Projects provide an opportunity to take an idea and see it through to completion.
Examples of projects include developing sales of a new product or opening up a new overseas market. Others might include process improvements – such as setting up a new IT tool or creating a new training process.
Many of these projects will grow into important parts of our operations or new products or markets. Indeed, some will grow to a full time position or new business.
Support and Training
When you join the graduate scheme you’ll be coached and mentored by your predecessor with extensive input from other members of the team. As soon as possible, you’re given responsibility to do the job – working alongside your mentor.
We have a progressive, self-paced learning programme, where you learn skills to do your job.
Each week you’ll receive a one to one meeting with your mentor or the company owner. This is where we discuss your progress, identify lessons learned and iron out any problems you might be experiencing. You’ll receive feedback to help you develop in your role and with the team.
Once you’ve mastered your current role, you’ll start passing on your knowledge to junior members of the team. This teaching not only helps your successor but firmly embeds your professional knowledge.
Another part of our culture is cross-support. With all graduates learning all aspects of the business – we are able to support one another in the event of illness or if you are having to take time off.
After The Scheme
The Expert Labels Graduate Scheme is a permanent position with us. The goal of this scheme is to prepare you for working permanently with us. At the end of the scheme you can:
- Take on a permanent business development or marketing role.
- Develop a new product or service within Expert Labels
- Apply for a vacancy in one of our other permanent positions (commerical services, Operations and professional services, finance or HR).
- Work in a management role in a subsidiary business.
- Taking your skills and working for us setting up international operations.
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Our office is located in the historic market town of Bury St Edmunds, in the heart of Suffolk, one of the most beautiful counties of England.
Bury St Edmunds isn’t a large town, but it has plenty of choice with pubs (it is the home of the Greene King brewery after all), restaurants and shops. We even have a couple of cinemas and a theatre.
The A14 runs past Bury, making it 40 minutes from Cambridge and Ipswich, 50 minutes from Stansted airport and just an hour to the M25.
What We Are Looking For
- A good degree – 2:1 or better. We don’t mind what subject you studied.
- Excellent written and spoken English.
- Full driving licence.
- Someone who is proactive, intelligent, ambitious, adventurous and friendly with a record of success at school, university or life.
Joining Process
Congratulations for reading this far. We hope you like what you’ve seen.
Closing Date: 19 Feb 2021
- The first step is to apply through Indeed.co.uk. Send your CV and a COVERING LETTER (tell us about what you’ve enjoyed about your studies, what hobbies and interests you have and what you learned from your degree).
Tell us what makes you keen to work with us at Expert Labels and what skills you believe you can share with us. Are there any placements on the scheme you’re particularly looking forward to working in? Tell us what you’ve succeeded at in life.
- If we like what we see in your CV, we’ll arrange a short video call with one of the team.
- The next step will be to hold a longer virtual interview where you’ll have the opportunity to ask us more about the scheme, work and Expert Labels.
- After a virtual interview we’ll invite you to visit our office and meet the team. If you like what you see and we think you’ll be a good fit for us, we’ll take up references.
- References are a key part of our recruitment process and we will expect you to set up conversations with key people from your school and university education, not to mention managers from any part time or holiday employers.
As you’re a great employee and student your previous teachers and managers will be only too pleased to talk to us!
Finally, with references taken up – we’ll send you a job offer and arrange a start date.
Updated 16 Jan 2021