Bid Manager Review

My role currently consists of a mixture of bid management and financial reporting for the justice sector. My day-to-day roles include meeting with my boss in the morning, putting together spread sheets, helping with bids, participating in conference calls and sending out reports to the whole sector which track and monitor the performance of the justice sector.

I have learnt a lot of new skills on this programme. Before joining I was not very technical and struggled with things such as excel. However, since joining I have developed many different types of skills to do with excel with help me with the financial reporting skills. I have also developed existing skills such as communication and presentation skills.

I enjoy my day-to-day role very much, however, I do not enjoy university as I feel like the days are too long and we are set a lot of work which is often hard to balance with a full time job.

I feel valued by CGI as members often call to me when they need help, this makes me feel like part of the company. Employee recognition is also vital to CGI and being recognised makes me feel extremely values not only by my team, but by the entity of the company.

I feel like the programme is not entirely well structured as the workload from university is so large is almost seems impossible to fit it in around our full time day job. I think the programme would be better structured if we had 1 day off per week to do university week as fitting in this work in evening and weekends leaves no time for social life.

We receive very little report from our training provider, having only met them twice in almost a year. However, I do not feel like there is that much they can teach us as we are constantly being taught new things in CGI and University.

I receive a lot of support from my employer and am continuously offered more support. Anytime I am struggling with anything, their are always members willing to go out of their way to help me which makes me feel valued.

My current salary barely meets my costs and I often struggle having to go in to my overdraft or asking my parents for help. I feel as if it needs to be slightly higher in order to cover all of my costs as I have moved out of home now, this would relieve a great deal of stress in my life also.

CGI offers a lot of clubs outside of working hours, such as sports clubs and running clubs. I do not feel like as a sponsored degree student that I can participate in these due to my lack of free time, as my evenings and weekends are always consisting of university work drastically affecting my social life and interactions with the opportunities CGI offer outside of the workplace.

Yes

I would recommend CGI to a friend but I would first make them aware of the extremely high work loads and amount of pressure. I do not think this programme is for everyone but I would recommend it to friends which are good with time management and can handle large amounts of work on a daily basis.

Make sure you first understand the whole concept of the sponsored degree before applying. University work can be a lot to balance on top off a full time job so you must have excellent time management skills.