Emilia, a keen baker, foodie, traveler, and Harry Potter fan, is a passionate people person and a valuable member of Bromford’s customer service centre. Here she tells the story of her career journey to date, and how being here is helping her to thrive…

It is almost 12 years ago now that I followed my aspirations and moved to England to study at the University of Wolverhampton. Like most of my fellow students, I had to work to support myself financially. Initially, I worked in hospitality for close to 10 years where I climbed the ranks of my then profession. My last job was as a restaurant manager in Wolverhampton’s Debenhams which sadly closed its doors. While working at Debenhams, I started to develop an interest in human resources (HR) and decided to take it upon myself to complete the widely-recognised CIPD course in HR.

I started my journey with Bromford back in July 2019, that’s two and a half years now. I had never worked in an office environment before, so it was a completely new world and I had to quickly adjust to that style of working. And I’m not going to lie, working set days and hours after coming from hospitality makes life so much easier!

While working in customer service, I noticed that other colleagues were moving to different teams for development opportunities. I was intrigued what opportunities were available for us and by speaking to my leader I established that if you express an interest in a specific team, you can schedule a shadowing day with them. So, I took a chance…

My main goal was to try and get some experience in HR as I was still doing my (grueling!) CIPD course. In 2020, I managed to schedule few shadowing sessions with our people team to meet the team and get an idea of what they do daily. And then… COVID happened. Everything went on hold. We started working from home and trying to manage the work/life balance was really hard. I had to pause my coursework and forget about my career development for the time being.

When the COVID restrictions eased, I enrolled on Career Development Programme which was set up by Bromford to help colleagues with their development. The programme consisted of three sessions which helped identify what the best career plan/path would be for the individual and then focused on developing their own skills/strengths. It covered everything from managing time and workload, to honing interview skills and CV’s. I would definitely recommend this program to anyone who needs some guidance on where they want to go in their career and understand what they need to do to get there.

For me personally, one of the things I found valuable was understanding who I needed to contact to progress with my career development. Of course, the first point of contact would be my team leader, but it was key to know who else I needed to build relationships with to pursue my broader goals. Try and find out who your point of contact in the desired team could be, and introduce yourself to them, ask questions. If you don’t ask, you won’t know!

Since the CDP finished, I secured a two week opportunity to assist the people team before Christmas and really enjoyed my time with them. I gained a lot of experience and insight into the day-to-day life in a HR team, which only assured me that this is the right path for me. In the near future, I’m hoping to secure more development opportunities and progress my career within HR.

And what’s your path? Are you still looking? Still haven’t decided? Start a conversation! Ask questions! I’m sure you’ll find your answer!

Bromford is hiring! Keep an eye on our job vacancies and discover if you belong at Bromford.