Half way through...
I’m uploading this post half way through my second rotation and half way through the grad-scheme. I know this is what almost all the other grads have written but seriously – where has time gone?!
Member Services has been a fantastic rotation so far. I’ve been given the amazing (and slightly daunting!) opportunity to manage two projects –
175 Faces of Chemistry and this year’s
Pay and Reward Survey.
I was looking forward to working on the 175 Faces of Chemistry project as I wanted to use telling the stories of so many inspirational chemists as a chance to improve my writing skills. I hadn’t realised how many other things would be involved in the project though! We are currently regenerating the website for the 175 project, so I’ve been heavily involved in the design and testing of the site. I can honestly say I had no idea how much work went in to producing a website and I’m so grateful to our ICT team for doing such an amazing job. We’re hoping the new website will go live in July, so watch this space! I’ve also enjoyed rediscovering my inner-geek and love of statistics by learning how to use Google Analytics. We’re using it to track the traffic to the 175 Faces of Chemistry website so that we can plan our marketing campaign for the new website and for the Royal Society of Chemistry’s 175th anniversary in February 2016.
The other project I’ve been managing is the Pay and Reward Survey, which is a survey that the Royal Society of Chemistry runs, every two years, to collect salary information about their members. We hire an external agency to run the survey for us and I was involved in selecting the agency. This was great fun as the potential agencies came to Cambridge to pitch their ideas to us and it was exactly like being a ‘dragon’ on Dragons Den (well sort of…). Since selecting the agency, I’ve been working on our marketing and communications campaign to ensure we get the highest response rate possible. This has been an excellent way to learn how to write in different styles for particular audiences and channels. I’ve also been looking into the best ways that we can present the results of the survey to our members (more stats - yay!)
Apart from these two projects, I’ve had some great opportunities to experience other aspects of the RSC. I’ve attended our Member Networks Committee meeting, written a
Chemistry World article and been trained to work in our library at Burlington House. I’m really looking forward to what the rest of this rotation will bring
Isobel is a Graduate currently working in the Education Team on the Royal Society of Chemistry's Graduate Scheme. To see if we are currently recruiting for the RSC Graduate Scheme click here
