A week in the life of the External Officer

Hi everyone, today I will tell you something more about my function as the external affairs officer of Kraket. An exciting job which I learned a lot from. But before I will tell you more about that, I will first introduce myself.

My name is Fleur and I am 21 years old. I am in my third year of the bachelor Econometrics and Operation Research. I did two courses so far this year and I am now studying to hopefully pass my third course. This means that next year I will finish my Bachelor. Besides the board year and studying I try to go to the gym at Uilenstede and I give exam training to high school students.

Being the external affairs officer is not the only thing I do for Kraket. I am also a member of the Electoral committee, member of the Study Trip committee and the chairman of the Diversity and Development Day committee.

I described the last week of February, so let’s see what that looks like!

Monday
The Monday morning started of with a lecture I went to. This doesn’t happen very often but I try to go to lectures as much as I can. At the beginning of the afternoon I had some active member conversations. This is officially a task of the internal affairs officer, but most of the time these conversations are divided by all the board members.

After that I first called some companies such as EY and Achmea. I also made the monthly vacancy mailing that afternoon and sent it to Martijn. He always checks these emails to make sure it looks good! Then I sent some more emails to companies and my day at the VU was over.

Tuesday
This day I skipped my lecture because I had to do a lot of administration work. As the external affairs officer you receive a lot of emails. You get questions of companies that are interested in working together. But you also have email contact about inhouse days, advertisements in the Ecotribune and SECTOR, vacancies that have to change on the website and many more. Besides checking my email I am also busy with making contracts, keeping my contact list up to date and guiding the formal committees. So this kept me really busy that morning.

In the afternoon I had a meeting with Marit, who is my buddy from the supervisory board. Your buddy is someone you can always go to for advice and talk about how everything goes within the board. After that, I had a meeting about the Career Guide. When that was finished we had the Almanac Handout drink in the Ebeling!

Wednesday
On Wednesday I had to open the Kraket room at 10.00 o’clock. Again the whole morning I was busy with checking and sending emails. I also had to prepare the LOES external meeting that I had in the afternoon. As an external affairs officer, you have a meeting with the other external affairs officers of FAECTOR, Vectum, Vesting and Asset, a few times in a year. This is always in Utrecht and after the meeting we always have a drink with each other. Then I took the train back to Amsterdam, because in the evening we had a beer tasting with board 47.

Thursday
On Thursday I went to a lecture again and right after that I had a meeting with the Diversity and Development Day committee. This event was next week, so we had to do some final preparations. After this meeting we had the board meeting, which we have every week. When that was over, I went home. But in the afternoon I still did a lot of work for the Diversity and Development Day. I was checking if we had all the names of the people from the companies, making groups for the workshops, making a packing list and checking the speed date schedule.

Friday
On Friday I went with Thijs to one of our premium partners MIcompany. We talked about the collaboration we have and what we can improve. We also talked about the inhouse day that is coming up. Then in the afternoon, together with the committee we did a lot of preparations for the Diversity and Development day again. Making name cards, goodie bags, cards for the speed date event and cards for the companies. When that was finally finished it was time for some fun at the Apres Ski FrAfDri.

I hope you know more about what it’s like to be the external affairs officer. This week in February I was really busy with the Diversity and Development Day which is partly because I am the chairman of this committee. But also as the supervisor you are really involved in events like this and will always help with the final preparations!

If you want to know more about the function external affairs officer, you can always contact me!