Trainee Project Manager Review

I have really enjoyed my industrial placement with Mace over the past year. I feel I have gained a lot from the experience, working in a professional environment, learning about the role of a project manager and being involved in the management of projects.

Within my project teams and across the sector I would like to think I am valued by my colleagues, I have been given good feedback on work I have done and the level of trust I have been given reflects that they feel I can do a good job.

I would say I have been very well supported by my senior colleagues and those in my project teams. Both Joe and Pete have been great line managers that helped me settle in quickly at Mace and allowed me to develop into the role comfortably.

Generally it can vary as occasionally there are times where I have been given a lot of work to turn around in a very quick timeframe; on the other hand there have been things where I was not able to get involved in certain elements or meetings for example and so and this has allowed me to get involved in other projects and assignments outside of my allocated projects.

I have been given a high level of responsibility over the tasks and elements I have been assigned to manage or input into on the projects. I was given tasks at the start of the placement that allowed me to quickly get familiar with the projects and the roles of the PM, for example writing PEPs and organising project documentation. Over time I am now able to run specific workstreams within the projects.

I would say that I have learnt and developed a lot of organisational, presentation and management skills that will be useful to me both in my degree and beyond. Generally I have not used that much technical knowledge from my degree, outside of reviewing drawings etc, which does differ from my course, but might not differ from what I actually want to do in my career anyway.

Generally speaking the atmosphere is good, particularly within sector teams where you work closely together and build good relationships. The benefit of the hotdesk policy is that you often sat next to different people outside of your teams or units which was good for meeting new people.

I would say the placement was very well setup, I was very aware of the start of what I needed to do when I joined Mace, well informed during the application process and leading up to the first day, as well as events throughout the placement and now how I am leaving.

I would say the company have invested in my in their commitment to offer me a place on the placement scheme and now the possibility of future summer placements or going onto the grad scheme. I would have appreciated more training about the role so I was less reliant on asking loads of questions to my colleagues.

Yes, I would look forward to returning to the company in the future - both being familiar with the company and the role, but also because I have enjoyed what I have done on the placement and would like to stretch it further when I graduate. The company as made me aware there may be opportunities for future placements, sponsorship and a place on the graduate scheme, and it would be great to get something sorted before I return to University so I can focus in my final two years on the degree and not worrying about applying for graduate jobs!

Yes there is, although the placement students are spread out across the UK so organising anything can be difficult, but being in London helped as generally people would have to come to us! The graduates are more keen at organising social stuff as there are a big number of them spread over a couple of year groups.

The cost of socialising is quite high but as the placement student you generally find senior colleagues were generous to pay for things if they were outside of a price range I was comfortable with. Living at home meant rent was very cheap but then this was offset by the cost of my season ticket, especially as I had to pay for it upfront as well.

The nightlife itself is good but because I am commuting quite a distance, I was not always able to go out as much as other graduates or placement students.

Yes, there are regular events, socials or other activities that you are invited to.