By Oliver Griffiths

A few months ago, my school announced that we would be having a work experience week. At first, I wasn’t sure what to do. I had always enjoyed design and architecture, but over time I started to feel less certain about pursuing it as a career. My mum has done graphic design work for Black Cat Building Consultancy in the past, and since she knew I was interested in Design & Architecture, it was suggested as a potential placement for work experience. I am now at the end of my time here at Black Cat and I don’t regret it one bit. The team have been extremely welcoming, and I have learnt so much more about a career I thought I already knew about. It’s also given me a real feel for what work life is actually like.

On my first day, I had the chance to meet the team and get settled in. My supervisor, Nicole Rosebury, had set me a task of reviewing the Team Member Handbook. This involved going through a document and making any necessary grammatical corrections. This task took quite a while, but I got it done.

After being taken out for lunch at Pret, I worked on an Excel document containing phone numbers from the database and matched them up to unnamed phone expenses, which was fun as it was more math based and was a valuable learning experience. After that, I reviewed the team’s profiles and bios on the website, copied the content into a Word document, made grammatical corrections, and highlighted any information that might need updating.

With my first day coming to an end, I didn’t know what to expect the next day until I got home. I was told by my mum that I would be meeting Stephen Barnes, one of the founders at Black Cat, to participate in a meeting about the possibility of building a new multi-storey car park. So, I met Stephen at 8am, and from that point on, I learnt so much about building consultancy and the various career paths I could pursue in the future. Whilst onsite, I had the opportunity to meet a council member as well as representatives from different companies interested in collaborating on the project which was exciting. That was the end of day two, and I knew I would be working on some CAD work the following day. I met with James Green (Design Technician) who taught me how to use AutoCAD. James set me the task of mapping out a plan of a new Greggs store that was opening in a shopping centre he was working on. I used the measurements he took onsite and, after much struggle, managed to complete the plan. I wasn’t finished with AutoCAD yet. After having lunch with the team, I took on the task of using a Disto to measure the entire office, then transferred the data onto AutoCAD to create my own building plan.

Onto day four, I worked on Leases and Dilapidations. This is the part of a rental contract which tells the Tenant how to leave the building when the Lease ends. I looked through an example Lease and was shown by Alan Wales MRICS (Director) what each term meant. I then highlighted all the necessary obligations a Tenant would need to complete a Dilapidation. After completing that task, I started working on VAT reports and had to use another Excel document to find prices, dates, and booking references for the company’s hotel reservations. Once I found the information, I emailed the details to each hotel, requesting an invoice for the stay.

On my last day, I completed more CAD work for Patrick Kane (Director) and interviewed John Light, Graduate Building Surveyor, for my school project, where I learnt about his role and responsibilities.

That was the end of my time at Black Cat, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and am grateful for the experience, I had lots of fun exploring the different opportunities in a building consultancy and hope to stay in contact in the future.

Black Cat are invested in supporting the building professionals of the future, from offering work experience opportunities like Ollie’s, to apprenticeships and graduate positions within our expanding team.