Vehicle Package Engineer Review

I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to enhance and develop my skills whilst working in a positive and engaging working environment. It was exciting to observe and help shape decisions that the company were making on future products and it was valuable for me to see how big businesses go about making these decisions.

The working environment was always positive and engaging with colleagues always willing to help, advise and provide constructive criticism when needed. There was also a good rapport outside of the normal working relationship with all coworkers.

Throughout the placement I was given one-to-one mentoring which eventually fed into a performance review. This mentoring helped enhance my skills and provided consistent support and guidance. The performance review helped me reflect on my placement and provided good pointers for personal development in the future.

Joining Jaguar Land Rover as it is rapidly expanding its product portfolio meant that I was occupied with various different workstreams everyday. As the scope and remit around these workstreams would change often I was always engaged in developing and adapting my work to the needs of the business and this meant I was not only occupied with work but I was applying and improving the skills I had developed during my placement.

Whilst the workstreams were delegated towards me I was expected to coordinate meetings and to drive the development of these workstreams by myself. The onus was on me to articulate the status of issues to immediate management and the work I did was often put to more senior management by this immediate management to drive key business decisions. I was treated just like any other employee at Jaguar Land Rover.

After going on a 3 week CAD training course courtesy of Jaguar Land Rover I applied these newly learnt skills on a daily basis developing a good standard of CAD proficiency in a short space of time. Considering I had never used CAD software before this will prove very useful to me in the future. Other than that the most important skill I developed was self proficiency. By being given responsibility I enhanced my ability to go and perform tasks using my own initiative and this pushed me to develop other skills too such as time management.

The atmosphere was focused on the work at hand but also relatively relaxed and informal. Everyone was sociable and as willing to discuss sports or global politics over a cup of coffee as they were to discuss important tasks. The tone may have been slightly informal but it was always respectful and whenever the situation dictated it was also honest and serious.

Initially there were some start-up issues with gaining access to buildings and car parks etc. but generally the placement didn't really feel like a placement. With the responsibility given and general attitude of the business you feel more like an day-to-day employee than an undergraduate.

As previously mentioned the company paid for me to go on a three week CAD course where I learnt the fundamentals of the CATIA programming software. From what I understand the course normally costs £3000 or so, so this was a sizeable investment in someone who had never used CAD before nevermind CATIA. There were also several other educational opportunities available with courses available through their Catalyst Learning System, however I did not make use of these as I did not feel they were applicable to me yet.

As mentioned previously Jaguar Land Rover is currently expanding its product portfolio so its quite an exciting time to be part of such a company. Usually at the end of the placement process they review your performance and if it is up to standard they decide whether or not to offer you a placement (provided you only have 1 year of Uni left and that their headcount dictates that there will in fact be a spot to offer you).

As I lived local to the area (and I did not rent out like other students/colleagues) I was not able to partake in the social scene as much as I would have liked but from what I understand there was a good social scene between fellow placement students. All the placement students knew each other quite well and it was easily so socialize and share experiences amongst each other.

Again as I lived local to the area the cost of living and socialising was relatively low for myself. In terms of Coventry and Leamington City Centres (local to the Whitley and Gaydon bases) costs are relatively normal depending on however you want to socialise.

I think nightlife depends more on the company you keep as opposed to where you go but there are some nice bars etc. in Leamington.

Yes, one such example would be joining a departmental 5-a-side football team. We participated in a league and it was fun to not only play football and be healthy but also to build a rapport with colleagues in a different environment.