Sofia Zafar Email & Phone Number

Maidenhead, England, United Kingdom

I am working in a HR Graduate Job Role with Biogen.

Birmingham, England, United Kingdom

Placement YearFollowing on from my previous role in Human Resources, I had seeked out this new opportunity with Balfor Recruitment Group. Here I will be utilising my previous skill in recruitment to help the company succeed in finding the best candidates; specifically Teachers and Teaching Assistant across Education sectors in Birmingham. The role also withheld an element of me taking on resourcing tasks which fits in line with my degree, again helping me to progress with a career in HR.

Birmingham, England, United Kingdom

Placement YearHere I had been made responsible to take on many HR tasks revolving employee queries (especially managers). This could vary from setting up training programs, dealing with any general employee queries/issues, and updating employee details with specific software’s. The most in depth task the job has taught me is the recruitment process. This involved me receiving the vacancy details to then proceed to advertisement. I have gained extensiveknowledge of the vetting checks which must be performed during recruitment such as obtainingreferences, setting up and carrying out DBS ID checks and Medical checks, as well as calculatingsalaries and drawing up contracts for future employees. There was a constant liaising with hiringmanagers, finance team and employees within the role and along with being on the employee absenceline once a week, I have been able to enhance my previous communication skills and learn to take firmdecisions in different scenarios but still be able to provide the best outcome.Understanding these processes and being exposed to numerous vacancies in a short period hasallowed for great experience in the HR field and insight into a true career down the line

London, England, United Kingdom

I started working in John Lewis in their food department (‘The Place to Eat’). Here I became a fully trained barista. I also served customers a variety of foods, which helped to enhance my communication and confidence skills. I worked here for six months, which allowed me to build relationships with regular customers, colleagues and managers. After the re-opening of John Lewis and Partners from lockdown being lifted, I was moved on to the ‘hosting team’. Here we helped direction customers in the correct manner of different sections in the store and booked them into appointments for certain departments, to comply with the new COVID-19 guidelines. Here, I started off as a regular member of the team but had been given the great opportunity of moving on to co- managing/ leading AND training the team on numerous occasions. My leadership skills here were developed immensely, as well as building a sense of trust between my colleagues and managers across the store. I used online learning to my advantage and worked around my university timetable in working in John Lewis. Here I gained a true insight into an undiscovered passion of mine which was fragrances. I learnt a lot of information regarding fragrances and have since been complemented on my customer service many times. This led to me being nominated and winning an award from John Lewis and leading brands, for my customer service and knowledge in Fragrances.

London, England, United Kingdom

As my job time at John Lewis was postponed by COVID- 19, I took on the opportunity to work in Waitrose (as John Lewis and Waitrose are the same company) and become a key worker over the lockdown period. This was a very rewarding job as it felt I was giving back to the community in a hard period. I was able to gain experience in this new sector where I bettered my patience, worked more in a team and also become more independent. I was able to use my communication skills from my previous experience when speaking to customers on tills.

London, England, United Kingdom