Jen
My name’s Jen Eccles and I work on suits and I’m training to be an Assistant Buyer.
I look after the suiting range and we buy and develop a range for our customer.
One main opportunity we do get within each department is to work with some designers and I‘ve had a fantastic opportunity to work with one of our new designers. We’ve actually put a really bold, bright red lining in here because we do find that some of our M&S customers love that flash of colour and we feel that it sits really nicely our sartorial range.
It really interested me because you have an instant link to the product and what the customer really wants, you look at all the trends, you work really closely with the design team, you get involved with the technology side of it as well, and then, it’s very commercial, so it’s bringing in something quite exciting.
Ok, what I’ve got here is a machine washable, tumble dry suit. This is a really good product for us at M&S, it’s the only machine washable, tumble dry suit that we do, and on the High Street currently. A couple of years ago, we actually won a Queen’s Award for innovation, so it’s a brilliant, brilliant thing to have in our range.
The training structure that M&S has is absolutely brilliant – in terms of the leadership, presentation, communication. In terms of the buying role, you’re looking at costs, how you influence that, how you communicate with your suppliers; and then also looking at trends, so working very closely with designers. And I think as well, it’s also really important to make yourself aware of who else you can go to for help. This will be one point of advice, go and make yourself known to everybody and I think the more you make yourself known to the relevant departments, the more it raises your profile, but it also allows them to help you.
One piece of advice I’d give you if you were to apply for the graduate scheme, is really do your research about the company first, but essentially just be yourself.
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