On Apr 15, 2024, the grade 12 students of APEC Schools New Manila started their work immersion on different branches of Concentrix around Quezon City, it is part of their necessary requirement for the school year’s last quarter where they experience on hand training of the duties and responsibilities within the workplace and what to expect when they become employees in the future.
Concentrix is a BPO company which is an act of outsourcing business operations to third party vendors, in simple terms it handles customer calls from other businesses. APEC Schools partnered with Concentrix to send selected students to partake in work activities for 80 hours, furthermore heads of the said branches are to grade the performances of the students during the time frame.
The branches including this partnership are: Concentrix Cubao Spark Place, Concentrix UP TechnoHub, Concentrix West Ave Cyberwest, and Concentrix Quezon Ave Eton. Students were divided according to how much each branch could provide and included 2 batches with each batch having a 80 hour period. Students that were chosen to conduct face to face work immersion was based on the initial interviews and how well you presented yourselves, for students who opted to do online instead, they are tasked to do modules and synchronous sessions through the Concentrix website.
The internship students were placed either in the recruitment or testing department as a main focus of concentrix. Recruitment is where applicants apply for the position within a company, it is where personal and career information is gathered to assess if one is qualified, it also includes the pre screening and basic interview questions among others. Testing is where applicants' skills are put on a test and placed in a situation that arises within the position they’re trying to fill in; examples of these are speaking tests, listening tests, and typing tests among others.
Students that attended the said immersion have participated in interacting with people different to them and to types that they don’t usually are able to interact with within the school hours. Additionally the bond created between fellow co-interns and the heads of respective departments will be something they wouldn’t forget, according to the student’s experience most has been friendly to them within the immersion and never tried to pressure or stress them out.
It will be an invaluable experience being able to take part in such an activity, besides it being a requirement for one’s fourth quarter grades, it teaches you invaluable skills and values that you will be able to use in the future. Besides that it gives you a foresight of the workplace environment and how it goes, when the time comes that you do start working full time, it becomes a lot easier and lessens the pressure.
As students reflect on their participation, all the memories of the journey will be remembered, not only for the lessons it taught, but also for the connections that were made along the way with co-interns and respective persons in charge that made a memorable and comfortable working environment for everyone involved. Despite the numerous struggles and exhaustion each student faced branching out of school grounds and facing something that was out of the ordinary, it was nonetheless worthwhile for everyone that was involved.
The students were utmost grateful to both APEC Schools and Concentrix for igniting such opportunities that they were involved with. It shows their initiative and willingness to enrich the education of its learners and future contributors of this country. They hope that such experience helps other students in the future that enables them to step up and be positive contributors in their communities.
