Supply Manager Review

I very much enjoyed my placement at GSK, the year absolutely flew over and I did not want to leave. I was given real responsibility and felt like I actually made a difference to patients lives. I enjoyed it so much that I want to continue my career with GSK after graduating university.

The work I was doing directly benefited the others in my team and so they valued what I was doing. It meant that I was relied upon and felt like part of the team from the start. My colleagues also ensured that I was OK and were on hand to offer any support.

Initially I was given a lot of support and training so that I could start getting to grips with the job as soon as possible. Throughout my placement this support reduced, however if I ever needed any support i would just ask and get it. I also had regular one to ones.

My workload was always full, I did have to stay back on occasions and start early some mornings. Part of this was due to fitting in calls with markets who were on different time zones. I was not expected to put in extra hours but when I did it was appreciated.

I was given as much responsibility as someone who was not on placement, I thrived off of this because it meant that I could prove that I am capable of doing the job the same as anyone else. It also meant that I wasn't treated any differently just because I was a placement student.

Doing a placement definitely has helped me going into final year of university, I am a lot more organised and can plan my time a lot more efficiently. It helped put some of the theory I had learnt at university into practice, and looking beyond university it has given me experience that I can talk about in interviews.

It was a really good working environment, there were people who had worked in my office for 30 years and then there were new apprentice students. This diversity meant that there were lots of different people who I could go to for support. It could get tense when there were peaks in workloads and people were stressed but that is all part of working life.

Being only the second in take of placement students at my GSK site, there were still some teething problems in terms of where I fit within the company and what job role I was doing.

GSK invested a lot of time in my training, even though I was only there for 1 year they ensured that I was fully trained up and was offered as many training opportunities as everyone else who worked there. They also got a lot back from me because by having that training I was able to take on a full job role which in return benefited the company.

Everything I have heard about the graduate scheme seems very exciting and interesting. I am very keen on returning to GSK to be on the graduate scheme. They also offer a 'direct entry' process where you can leave your details and interests on a database which hiring managers can look at for 2 years after you have left your placement.

There were 2 other placement students in my area but also several apprentices, we regularly met up and went for lunch together and organised events out of work. I did not get the opportunity to go to any of the IP Unite socials as they were all based in London and I was based at a northern site.

Being based in the north was very beneficial as living costs are a lot lower.

The town itself did not have much to offer but there were plenty of towns and cities within an hour away that had better night life.

I was lucky to be on site when they celebrated their 70th anniversary so I got involved in helping organizing the event, I volunteered on their open day on a Saturday and got to be part of their history. GSK were also very kind in offering volunteers a day off in lieu.