Customer Service Intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my placement with Eaton, I have learned so much across the year and made life long friends! The work was challenging at times but always interesting, and the office was a really nice place to be everyday. I was given numerous development opportunities and more responsibility than I could have imagined. I loved every aspect of my placement - I didn't want to leave!

Despite being the youngest and least experienced in the department, I always felt valued by my colleagues. My ideas and opinions were listened to and people treated me in the same way as they did everyone else. On a number of occasions, colleagues would ask me for help or advice on aspects in which I had become knowledgeable and this made me feel really valued.

Unfortunately my manager left the business soon after I started, and was never replaced, therefore I did not have a direct contact in the business to give me guidance. I felt like I didn't have as much support as the other interns as I missed out on monthly meetings with a managerial figure, however, colleagues within the department were incredibly supportive.

My workload varied as when I had project work to complete to a deadline, I was extremely busy and generally had to work extra hours in the evenings. For the most part, I had the right amount of work; I was never bored but if I had time to spare I could help my colleagues with their work as often they would require help.

From the outset, I was given a great deal of responsibility. I was trusted with solving pricing disputes with customers which had to be correct to allow orders to be processed. I did not expect to have as much responsibility as I did throughout the year, but I felt proud to have been trusted with such important tasks.

The training program offered is one of the main reasons why I chose to do my placement with Eaton, and it didn't disappoint! Across the year I attended a number of training events and the skills taught have helped me hugely. I have already seen the benefit since being back at University, my Excel, Project Management and Presentation skills have all improved as a result of my placement year. Having experienced working in a professional environment and developing my everyday communication skills, I have become so much more confident in my own abilities and believe that it has made me more employable for the future.

The particular office that I worked in was always lively and never quiet. Everyone that I worked with was generally upbeat and fun, there were days when I would cry with laughter! Our supervisor was really motivating as well which helped boost morale and so it was a place that I looked forward to going,

The placement was really well organised; we had a two day induction event where all the interns met and the business was introduced to us. We were given information about the training events well in advance via email and these were all structured and organised brilliantly to best use the time that we had.

Altogether we attended 6 training events across the year where we had the opportunity to visit other Eaton sites and receive relevant training from professionals. I also helped out at an assessment centre for the new intake of interns which was hugely beneficial to me. Overall, Eaton's investment in me was huge and I really feel like they wanted to develop my skills as a person, not only technically for the business.

Eaton offers a graduate scheme for interns which is really appealing as it offers the same level of training and development as the placement year. I would love a graduate job with the business as it has a great culture throughout and opportunities for international travel.

Most people at the site where I worked were really sociable and so we would socialise regularly after work. The graduates and fellow interns were particularly sociable and so we would go out at the weekends (and sometimes mid-week!) which was great fun. Because we all spent time together outside of work, it made us form strong friendships with each other, and I've been back since I left to visit everyone.

My placement was in Sutton-In-Ashfield so the cost of living was quite cheap in comparison to Bristol which is where I am studying at University. I lived with two other interns at the same site and the cost of rent and bills was low as we lived in a student area of Nottingham, and the pubs and restaurants were equally as cheap! We chose to live near the centre of Nottingham because the town is great and there is always something to do, but because of this, we had a 40 minute commute each day to the office which cost us a lot in petrol - but worth it as Nottingham was such a fantastic place to live!

The nightlife in Nottingham was absolutely brilliant! Because of the two universities in the city, there are a number of student nights out in the week and cheap bars at the weekend. Most people at work lived North of Nottingham to be closer to the office but by the end of the year our house was more like a hotel as lots of colleagues would come to ours for the nightlife in the city centre!

Whilst I was on placement, there were limited opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work, mainly bike rides or charity fun runs. However, I know that other sites had sports teams set up and people would get really involved in the events, This is something that my site is working towards at the moment which I'm sure will be really exciting!