My work experience week with Rawnet
Work experience with the Rawnet team is not to be missed.
After calling the company and talking with Talent Acquisition Specialist Toby, I was ecstatic to be invited to learn more about life at Rawnet and the various challenges associated with each role. While I wanted to visit the team to learn about the User Experience process mainly, I came away from the week with a broader, increased appreciation for the inner workings of a Digital Agency and contacts to help in my continued job search. I couldn’t have asked for a friendlier, more informative experience at such an acclaimed, forward-thinking company.
As a university graduate, I’ll admit to being a little apprehensive about the week. Typically, experiences like these are usually catered to those still at school or university, but I was made welcome instantly, with the team intrigued about my experiences and what I wanted out of my time at Rawnet. After meeting Toby in person on Monday and receiving a tour of the company's snazzy office, I met Operations Manager Rose, who introduced me to my first task. Showing me spreadsheet data of the company's operational statistics, I was asked to sort the information into graphs to gain a clearer insight into the department breakdowns of output, cost, and time spent on specific projects. While challenging, the task was very enlightening, and I was encouraged to hear how Rose would use the work I produced to aid her in understanding the finer details of Rawnets workflow. In the afternoon, Rose introduced me to the web-based corporate wiki page Confluence and discussed its utility for project work. I was shown how companies like Rawnet utilise a tool like this for documentation and organisation for employees and clients, and Rose asked me to redesign a client page to ease navigation. I chose Hornby as my case study, and through trial and error, I was proud of the work produced despite being naive about the program before arriving at Rawnet.
The following day, I returned to Rawnet to join Rose again to discuss and research some of the company's competitors, specifically regarding their social media output. Diving into LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, I was asked to collate information on the effectiveness of various adverts, including static posts, images, and videos, all of which added to the brand presence of each respective company. By the end of the session, I had gained a clearer understanding of how marketing agencies project themselves in the digital space and the diverse range of tactics used to entice new clients to their services.
Next, I was introduced to Mairead and Nadine to learn about marketing, SEO and social media branding. Discovering the intricacies and various strategies used to increase brand awareness was exceptionally interesting, and both Mairead and Nadine were very generous with their time when it came to explaining what software/tools they used to complete their tasks. Despite learning a little about this area from previous education, it was exceptionally beneficial to receive insight from experienced marketers about the day-to-day demands of the roles. Moving over to the other side of the Marketing desk, I chatted with Dale about his role in the email marketing space and its importance in the digital marketing process. Additionally, he showed me how Landing Pages and Chat Flows integrated into the agency's marketing strategy, and it was fascinating to hear about his career trajectory and the intricacies of client relationships during project development.
Before the week's start, I was most excited to gain experience with the UX team, and Wednesday provided just that opportunity. I was introduced to UX Designers Neal and Jez, who were incredibly friendly and accommodating despite having a busy schedule with Rawnets website redesign. After chatting about my own UX experience, they introduced me to Relume, a software I had previously yet to use which utilised AI to create wireframes quickly to aid in project development. I was challenged to design my own golf e-commerce website with the program due to my interest in the sport, and while the final result wasn’t perfect, I’m glad to have been introduced to such a critical tool which I hope to understand more in the future throughout my career. In the afternoon, I was honoured that both Jez and Neal were willing to take a look at
some previous UX work that I had designed, providing me with the time to present my ideas in the Rawent presentation space. Not only did both of them offer some invaluable tips for improvement in my work, but they stayed in the office far past the allotted time for my daily work experience tenure to answer questions and provide resources to assist in my UX learning. Not only do I now have an increased confidence in my own ability in the UX space, but I have also gained contacts whom I can rely on for further advice and tips. Both Neil and Jez went above and beyond for me on this day and it’s a clear testament to their kindness and design acumen that they’d sacrifice their own time to help broaden my understanding of UX strategies.
On Thursday, I met up with Account Manager Joe to learn all about client relationships, as well as the specifics of his day-to-day schedule in his busy and often complicated role. I was lucky enough to join Joe in some internal virtual meetings in
the morning in regard to Hypnos, one of Rawnets clients. It was great to hear how the team collaborates to solve issues and how they all bounced off each other in order to find the best course of action for project work. Later, Joe introduced me to two crucial tools in website research and design, Wayback Machine and Crazy Egg. With these, I learnt how agencies like Rawnet can utilise user data to discover what customers look for on website pages and their thinking processes as they navigate around these spaces. As a budding UX designer, this information will be invaluable in my future research efforts when it comes to building digital products. After completing a client cost estimation task in the afternoon, I was raring to go for my final day with the company.
Friday started with me being introduced to Jess, a senior UI developer, and learning more about both her role at Rawnet as well as her career path. It was inspiring to her about her fortitude in tough times in previous job positions and how she pivoted so successfully into the UI space, of which she talked about with passion and in-depth insight. As someone who has learnt only a little about coding and the role of developers for digital companies, Jess’ explanation of her role was fascinating, particularly in regard to how she collaborates with the UX team and how she views the utility of AI in the future of programming. Whilst a little out of practice, I tried my hand at coding with HTML, CSS and Javascript, during which Jess provided helpful tips and encouragement during the coding task she provided me. Finally, in the afternoon, I had the pleasure of meeting Steven (Snoble to the team), another senior UI developer at Rawnet. Showing me his own design portfolio website, his knowledge of the digital design process was second to none and he certainly provided some essential advice for my own portfolio work, as well as best practices when it came to UI strategy. Furthermore, Snoble also introduced me to Harvest, a scheduling tool used by project managers to assign tasks and keep track of project progress. This along with other industry standard programs, such as Swagger for API management, provided me with a keener perspective on how designers, front and back-end developers cooperate together on a breadth of projects even one agency takes on during an average week.
And so after saying my thanks to the team my work experience was finally over.
While it’s sad that my time with Rawnet is over, I have a renewed drive to progress in the digital design space for my own career, as well as an increased knowledge from some a broad range of talented individuals, all of whom I couldn’t fault. I would highly recommend this experience to anyone who wants both a positive challenge and detailed industry insight into the digital agency space. I hope not to lose contact with the Rawnet team and look forward to updating them on my future career progress which they have so kindly assisted in aiding.
