HR Summer Intern Review

I did really enjoy the work I was given this internship. The project was broad and interesting and allowed me access to all parts of the company; letting me travel and see different sites and different areas of the business that made up British gas. This allowed me to gain insight on the opinions held by a wide variety of individuals who work for Centrica.

I definitely felt valued by my colleagues. I was given a lot of responsibility as well as individual tasks that I was trusted to carry out. I really felt the weight of my own place in the team and knew that I was started to make visible impact on what our project set out to do.

I was given some support by my management and supervisors; they told me what they wanted and I was free to ask any questions on how to achieve the goals. They didn't overly support or micromanage me which I quite liked as I feel working with trust is how I work best.

There were some days that I was very busy and other days I was not. This was perhaps partly due to the fact that it was Summer and obviously vacation time so there were times where there was very little activity on my floor and on my site in general. However, I'm sure that after this period the office is more lively.

I was given a lot of responsibility, but it was always made clear to me that I could ask anyone on my team (or outside my team) for help if I did not know how to do something. However, I definitely felt I had some roles that I had to complete and there was not necessarily someone checking up on my every move.

I developed a lot of general workplace skills, how to manage my time, how to set up meetings and use calendars that I'm sure will be very useful wherever I work. I am not sure the skills I used and developed will assist me in my degree studies necessarily, but they definitely will come in use in the workplace.

The general atmosphere in my main office was very very quiet. There was hardly anyone in most days, generally people chose to work from home or were travelling. However, other sites were way more active and I was aware that even the floor below mine and the building across from me were buzzing.

I thought it was very organised. My manager knew that I was arriving and my role kind of naturally formed as I'm sure it does in the workforce. There were also lots of graduate events and meals and summer barbeques and things. We were also given a laptop, phone, communication channels etc. so we could fully participate in the work we were set.

There wasn't really much personal training and development, it was more on the job learning. However, that being said my job wasn't necessarily very high skilled. They did provide some overall Excel skills training sessions as well as some Presentation workshops that really helped develop my overall skill set.

I think the future employment prospects are very appealing within the organisation; the graduate scheme seems flexible and you will get a relevant qualification out of it. There is a final presentation yet to do, but from what the company have communicated, it seems that the uptake from the summer internship to the grad scheme is quite high.

We all lived together in halls provided by Centrica that helped the social scene amongst us placement students. However, most of the students went home on the weekends so it was difficult to meet up. But the weekends that we did go out were really fun and as a group of people we really got along.