Investigate: Before my visit I found out this about the company

Applaud Web Solutions has 3 main functions in the construction of websites for small medium and large business. It handles the front end of the site using html, dream weaver and css to meet the requirements of the customer. It has a content management system which makes it easy for the customer to enter the required data.
It also has a document management system to manage the flow of info.

Observe: While at the company I job shadowed an Employee. This is what happened:

• Employee Name:
• Job Role:

The staff I shadowed clearly new there jobs very well indeed and were very skilled at it. To observe effectively, however, it is important to know the job description of the member of staff and to designate to area during the placement. This is much more realistic in such a short period of time. I found it hard to make an effective observation because I did not have the prior knowledge.

Interview: I talked with a member of staff to find out more about their role. This is what I found out:

• Employee Name:
• Job Role:
• Pathway from school to their current position:
  All of the staff who work for web solutions are highly skilled in computer science. James in particular (who manages the front end design) has been to 6th form then university (at Teesside) to study computer science. All the staff said it was a very competitive market place for jobs in IT and the more qualifications they had the better.
• Where do they see themselves in the future:
  

Participate: I took part in a work related activity. This is what happened:

• Description of task:
  I worked with James on this task.
  He was creating a website using html code, of which I have reasonable knowledge. He deliberately introduced some mistakes and asked me to try and identify where the mistakes were. I did fairly well and only missed two.
  
• Notes:
  

Imagine: From the perspective of a student the advice I would give is:

Be prepared and have a lot of questions ready to ask before you go on the placement.
Go in with the right attitude positive and keen o learn. Be smart look professional.
Make notes, rather than trying to remember what you have been told after the event.
Main message to take back is that businesses like Applaud Web Solutions are keen to help and this resource should be tapped into.

Summarise: The things I have found beneficial from the day(s) in the work environment are:

It was excellent to get an overview of how a company like Applaud Web Solutions work, how they operate and what makes them tick.
As well as the mechanics of what they do I also gained a valuable insight into how they advertise their business, how they recruit staff, how they differentiate their products so all their eggs are not all in one basket and how they deal with the finance of their business to help maintains healthy cash flow.
In addition it was also evident how hard they work. Long hours are very common to meet deadline and weekend work was extremely common.