Resiliency Services Commercial Support Review

I really enjoyed my placement. It has provided me with a great insight into the world of business, services and technology. Whilst some aspects of the job were pretty basic, there were opportunities to carve a well rounded placement.

I felt very valued. After 6 months I was classified as a "Trusted Advisor" to the business area. Many of my colleagues didn't even realize that I was only on a placement until the end of the year. I was trusted to work on various project and develop things on my own accord.

I had very little contact with my task manager. They were based in a different city to me. They were there to speak to if I needed anything, but a lot of the time, I was left on my own to find new challenges. On the other hand, my pastoral manager was very helpful. He was able to offer any support that I needed, link me up with any graduates that I wanted to speak to and would sit down and talk things through with me.

My workload had peaks and troths. At the start of each quarter, I would have a hectic workload doing data analysis on the results from the previous quarter. Then after a week or 2, it would die down to my essential functions. Then, as it neared quarter end, the workload would pick up again as deals were trying to be closed.

On my second week, I was told to "do whatever you like to this file". For the tasks and processes I looked after, I was given total control to improve them however I deemed best.

There were some vital skills, such as networking, Excel, teamwork etc. that have been developed immensely.

As I was not really part of any team, I sat in an area of the building where any employee in the world can come and sit. This meant I was almost always sat around strangers, resulting in a complete lack of "office banter". However, there was a great community of placement students whom I've made life-long friendships with,

I feel there could have been more monitoring of the roles given to placement students as some people do get overlooked.

For a placement scheme, there was a good amount of training development. Everyone employee has to do 40 hours of personal development a year and the quality of the online courses are very high. I also attended many events that were relevant to the area of business I worked in to improve my skills in those areas.

There are many options available for us to make the step up to the graduate scheme,

There are a huge amount of placement student in the office. The bar next to the office on the river was always full on a Thursday after work and would be followed by karaoke. There were so many people to make friends with and lots of night out. As a community, we organized a Christmas boat party and a summer/farewell roof party.

Its London: its very expensive. The lack of subsidized food and drink meant preparing meals for lunch throughout the week as it would be impossible to eat in the canteen everyday.

It's London: there's something for everyone and its amazing.

There was always something to do with your group of friends.