On International Women’s Day 2025, we are delighted to share Sarah’s return to work story.
Sarah successfully completed a 12-week paid Bids and Proposals Administrator placement at Verlume as part of the Underwater Returner Programme.
This resulted in securing a permanent role within Verlume, where she is now driving organisational change through developing a new sales process.
While on maternity leave during the Covid lockdown, Sarah and her family decided it would be best for her to take a career break to raise their two children instead of attempting to return to work during this challenging period.
At the point of applying to the Underwater Returner Programme, Sarah had taken 5 years out of full-time employment – a significant amount of time, considering her previous experience in the oil and gas, and chemical industries had totalled 7.5 years.
The Verlume interview was Sarah’s first interview in 5 years and the first interview after signing up to the programme. Sarah said, “The help and advice offered by STEM Returners was really helpful in making me feel more prepared for attending the interview and returning to a working environment.”
Initially, Sarah was looking for part-time work to ease herself into the working environment. However, recognising the strength of her skillset and having been impressed by the support and authenticity of the Verlume team, Sarah decided to take on a full-time role.
The energy industry benefits through engaging in these programmes as talented individuals such as Sarah, who has valuable experience in project management, administrative and production support roles, can have the opportunity to return to working life with the adaptability to ‘pick up’ where they left off and transfer skills.
In the context of Verlume expanding global sales of its subsea batteries and power management system technology, Sarah’s role is to support the business development team to manage and ensure the delivery of efficient and high-quality tender submissions to potential customers, as well as the development and submission of funding opportunity bids.
After a successful 12-week placement, Sarah has been in her current position for six months and has passed her probation period with outstanding results.
When asked about her experience of the programme, she said, “The Underwater Returner Programme is an excellent opportunity for companies to not only fill roles but also to consider candidates who might have been overlooked otherwise.”
Post programme, a significant focus of Sarah’s work has been to completely reshape the sales process to increase efficiency. This has given Sarah real responsibility and autonomy from day one, which she has taken on with enthusiasm and determination. She has also completed HubSpot and LinkedIn training to further develop her skills on key software required as part of this transformational sales process.
She has developed particular skills in idea generation and new ways of working, which aligns to ‘Innovation’ as one of Verlume’s core values. To this end, Sarah has integrated well within the business development team and the wider team, which is important as her role requires engagement with many parts of the company.
Verlume said, “Sarah is an important member of the business development team as she is vital in the successful roll-out of this new sales process, which will in turn increase sales and impact on positive customer retention rates.”
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