Supplier Development Undergraduate Review

It’s been really interesting being a part of Jaguar Land Rover and what has been the most enjoyable part for me is the fact that they really treat you as a genuine employee. From the off, your introduced into all the products that the company are a part of creating and really made to feel like the work you will be completing will have an impact on future products which is a great feeling.

My team were really friendly and I was introduced to everyone from the off which was encouraging as even though everyone was busy they still put time aside to find out more about me. This was especially apt when I spent one day shadowing another team and even though I was only there for a very brief period of time, the team made me feel really welcome and spent time getting to know me.

Whenever I asked for support and help it was given and usually within a short period of time. This was really useful because although I did learn a lot about the company, within my 3 months I was nowhere near as experienced as my team members around me so their help was taken with much appreciation.

The days really did have ups and downs in terms of how busy I was. I found that when I had a task I would solidly focus on it allowing me to get through the work in quite a short period of time which obviously left me without tasks at times. So at times I feel like it may have been better to have more ongoing work.

I feel like because I had my own project which was aiming at aiding productivity of my team that I had quite an important role. Furthermore, I was given a lot of freedom in my role allowing me to make decisions on how I best believed the new processes I put in place to productively support the business.

From the very start, I was given a rather in depth information pack on what my team’s responsibility was. Alongside this, I spent lengthy amounts of time of my placement self-teaching myself some basic VBA programming to enable me to make more effective use of excel. I found that most of the staff were happy to take the time to explain things if further guidance was needed.

I think at times the atmosphere was a bit too much driven towards a silent working ethic. This did make it a little harder initially to create relationships with my team as I was a little conscious of disrupting the silent environment. However at times this environment was suitable when getting on with individual work.

Initially, the work placement seemed to be very well structured with introductions into the company made and also department specific inductions into the roles. However this didn’t seem to continue after the first 2 weeks and I feel there could have been a few more ways of checking in again with the Undergraduates throughout the following 10 weeks.

We were lucky enough to be involved in the purchasing inductions aimed at all new starters to purchasing at Jaguar Land Rover even thought we were only on the 3 month internship. Other than this there weren’t many other areas of investment into the Undergraduates so there could have potentially been a bit more input here.

Hearing of other staff that are currently on the graduate scheme it does sound very interesting. I also learnt that during this there are ways to further participate in the company. There are sports competitions run between the 1st and 2nd year graduates which appeals to me. Also, the pay rate compared to other graduate schemes is very competitive.

I was fortunate enough to really get to know a good bunch of other undergraduates in purchasing at JLR. We met up frequently to discuss how we were all getting on and also made plans to do things out of work. I feel like a bit more could have been don though to help undergraduates network throughout the duration of the placement.

I was lucky enough to be living at home on my placement but I know that a lot of the undergraduates lived in Coventry and seemed fairly content with the price of rent. I did end up going to Coventry quite a lot after work to see others and even joined a gym here to participate in yoga and the classes seemed very reasonably priced.

There was quite a range of areas that we went out be it Solihull, Birmingham and Coventry. We didn’t do that many weekday nights due to being up pretty early for work the next day but the nights we did manage to make it out on were good and relatively cheap.

We did set up a group going to yoga twice a week as well as a few other meals and events with other under graduates but there wasn’t that much actually driven by the company. I know some of the other teams held team meals and other such events which may have been a good way of building up stronger working relations with the team.