October 24th 2022

Meet the IES Team: Kirsty Summers, HR Co-ordinator

Meet the IES Team: Kirsty Summers, HR Co-ordinator

Next up in our Meet the Team series is Kirsty Summers, who currently works as an HR Co-ordinator in our Glasgow office. Read on to find out what she had to say about her experience at IES so far.

1. Tell us a bit about your background and when you first came to join IES.
When I joined IES in 2021, it was for an industry placement as part of my MSc in HR Management. I had been struggling to get something organised, so IES’ opening happened to appear at the right time. I had worked with IES in a previous role and had been incredibly impressed and excited about the technology and services offered that having the chance to work with the team behind it was a no brainer. It also highlighted a great opportunity that brought together my background in Geography, but also my interest in working on Diversity and Inclusion.

2. What is your current role at IES? 
Currently, I work as an HR Co-ordinator with a focus on the coordination of IES’s graduates and interns. It is a varied role that is involved in a little bit of everything depending on the ongoing company projects. 

3. Were you involved in any of our Internship, Graduate, or other recruitment programmes? If so, can you tell us a bit more about your experience?
I started at IES working as an intern, brought in to undertake research on recruitment as a tool to facilitate diversity, focusing on recommendations to enhance the inclusivity of the workforce. It was a rewarding piece of work to complete and created the groundwork for a push to review the company’s ESG framework, which is currently ongoing.

Starting as an intern allowed me to know the team and the company before joining full-time. The team here gave me a great chance to try everything and discover where my interests and strengths lay across HR.

4. What does a typical working day involve for you?
My days are always different! Some days, particularly at the start of the week, I focus on new starts and inductions. With the company expansion, we were doing at least one induction per week but sometimes it was as many as four. Beyond this, a lot of my time goes into project work on developing our graduate scheme and supporting those who are currently undertaking elements of this. There is always something different to try and resolve, but it is one of the things I enjoy the most about my current position.

5. Are there any particularly interesting projects you have worked on that you could tell us about?
As I mentioned, I’ve been working on the development of our graduate scheme alongside our consultant and development teams. We have been formalising and creating a structured programme to support and engage graduate engineers, developers and professionals. The past year we have been focussing on how to provide opportunities for individuals within the programme to develop. Alongside the support to achieve professional accreditation and tailored soft skills training, our graduate programme and internship schemes are continually looking for ways to develop and improve. It has been an interesting challenge pulling the elements of the scheme together, however it continues to be a work in progress as we prepare to start planning for the year ahead.

You can find more information on this here: https://www.iesve.com/careers/graduate-programme 

6. What is the best thing about working for IES?
Beyond the project work, the best thing about working for IES is the people and their enthusiasm, I benefit immensely from being able to bounce ideas and solutions off of others. There is a real depth of knowledge and experience in the company that has helped me develop both personally and professionally. 

7. What important skills have you learned whilst working here?
Whilst some of these skills are still developing, my time at IES so far has improved my confidence in my abilities when working with others. It helps that there are lots of opportunities to get involved and challenge myself every day.

8. What advice would you give others considering a position with us?
If anyone was considering working with IES, either a new graduate or an experienced candidate, I’d tell them to do it as it is a great place to work, learn and develop. 

Interested in joining our team? Head over to our careers page where you can check out all our latest vacancies, or send a speculative CV to careers@iesve.com.