Impressing her team during a year-long work placement with George at ASDA has landed Sophie Muddiman a full-time job during a global pandemic.
Finishing her degree during the coronavirus outbreak was made a little less challenging for the Fashion Buying with Marketing graduate, knowing that she had secured a role with the clothing line for one of Britain’s leading supermarket retailers earlier this year.
Today, she’ll be joining in the online events for DMU’s Class of 2020 to celebrate.
The 22-year-old from Leicester said: “It made the experience really worth it. I invested an extra year to secure my future and it would have been heartbreaking to miss out because of the pandemic, something none of us have any control over.”
Working as an assistant garment technologist across George’s boyswear range, Sophie is part of the team responsible for ensuring that the garments fit according to the specifications and comply with the safety requirements.
“I started my placement not understanding what a garment technologist was, but I left feeling empowered, knowing that it’s what I wanted to do once I graduated. I’ve been really lucky with all of my managers because they put their trust in me and helped me to develop,” she said.
Starting her role in May, at the height of the pandemic in England, Sophie was initially working from home.
She said: “If I had just started working with a new company I think it would have been really difficult. But because I knew the team and everyone is so lovely, it’s been much better than I could have imagined.”
A typical week for Sophie involves fitting sample garments on mannequins, meeting with suppliers, discussing sales figures and lessons learned with other internal teams, and following up on customer feedback.
Sophie got a good feeling about working at George from the start of her placement year. She said: “The way they approach you as an employee from the beginning is brilliant. It’s such a lovely company to work for, I can’t praise it enough.
“Even when I went back to uni to finish my last year, they stayed in touch regularly to build on our relationship, which put me in a good place when I started working there full-time from home.”
The skills and knowledge she developed on her degree helped Sophie to impress during her placement year and beyond.
“I went into the workplace with a solid foundation of the design and trade cycles. We also learned a lot about textiles – different fibres, their weights, how you care for them, washing and testing them – which was particularly helpful for my role,” she said.
“When I was on my placement, my boss and I went back to DMU to talk to students about what being a garment technologist is.
“They’re the main people that influence the design and purchasing processes and knowing about the role during your degree can suddenly open up a whole new career option.”
Posted on Tuesday 18 August 2020