Minck Beernink

You have been working for Schneider Electric for a while now, can you tell us more about your position and the organization?
“I have been working in the Digital Sales team at Schneider Electric for ten months now. We map out the installers behind the wholesalers. Schneider Electric mainly supplies to wholesalers, after which they serve the installers. In a nutshell, Schneider Electric deals with everything that needs power today. That power has to be distributed in a certain way through buildings, train stations, airports, etc. To realize this, an awful lot of components and products are needed. We are mainly active in energy management and supply various products for this. We sell many of these components or products to installers who visit people's homes, for example, to repair the distribution box. The installers do their purchases at the wholesaler. We usually do not sell directly to the installers. Because the wholesaler is in between, many installers are not yet known to us. What we have tried over the past year is to discover through campaigns which installers are known to Schneider Electric and find us interesting as a company. We mainly called afterward to discover potential business and interesting customers. To then ensure that we could respond directly to that installer, instead of via the wholesaler. Within the Digital Sales team, I was mainly concerned with SME installers in the residential and non-residential sector.”

You are now part of the digital sales team, but how did your career start?
“I was sixteen when I finished my VMBO education. At that time I did not know at all what I wanted to be when I grew up . Eventually I went to study to become a teaching assistant. Nice, but not quite my thing. I soon found out. Fortunately, at the time, you could register for a follow-up HBO study with any MBO course. For that reason, I did complete the training to become a teaching assistant. I then started at the Hogere Hotelschool in Apeldoorn. During my studies I went to Sint Maarten for an operational internship. The following year I did my management internship at the Sheraton Amsterdam Airport Hotel at Schiphol. I ended up interning and working at the Sheraton for two and a half years. From my internship role as Duty Trainee, I was approached after my internship to follow up the Duty Manager, who was leaving at that time. I was there in charge of four other Duty Manager Trainees. It was a very fun but also instructive function! Eventually this adventure ended due to the corona pandemic, my contract was not renewed. The sales profession already appealed to me enormously at the time. For this reason, I started looking around and eventually ended up at Schneder Electric. It is an extremely challenging job in which you are constantly competing with yourself.”

How did your process go at DevelopHer Academy and Women in Sales?
In my search for a cool sales position, I saw the vacancy of Schneider Electric in combination with the traineeship of the DevelopHer Academy. After a number of conversations, I got a good idea of ​​the position, the traineeship, and what it will ultimately benefit me. When I was hired, Sabine called me enthusiastically. She explained the further process to me.

From day one I have experienced this process as very pleasant, it went smoothly, professionally and I immediately felt at the right place.

I am very happy that I made the choice for the traineeship. Every two weeks during my traineeship, I have a day of sales in the sales profession. The theory fits in seamlessly with my position, allowing me to develop as a sales professional. I would make this choice again without hesitation and recommend it to anyone. Especially when you get out of school. Sometimes a traineeship is viewed with a skewed eye, because people have already completed a HBO study. “Then why would you take a traineeship for another year?”. But after following this traineeship, I can confirm that this image is not correct. I see it more as a full-time job with extensive training every two weeks, in which theory is tested against practical examples.