Intern - Colleague Support Analyst - People, Legal and Strategy (HR) Review

Everyone within my team, and colleagues outside of my team, were extremely nice, friendly and willing to help me if they could. When working with colleagues they treated me well, genuinely valuing my work and wanting to hear my input. They immediately made me feel comfortable in my working environment.

I was given fantastic support by my Line Manager. He happily organised weekly review meetings, at my request, in which we could discuss what I had done that week - what had gone well, what was a struggle, voice any concerns I had ect. As well as this, he made sure to organise extra opportunities to help my development - including organising for me to visit different working environments and sit in on meetings outside of my immediate work. After these opportunities he would also take the time to reflect on it with me, for example to reflect on what went well in the meeting and what did not, allowing me to think about how I might run a meeting in the future. He also made sure to take the time to fill in my scorecard in detail and discuss it with me at lenght, allowing me to get as much useful feedback as possible. Finally, if I ever needed extra support or clarification on anything, he was happy to spend the time to give this.

This varied over the time of the internship but at no point did I ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of work I had and at no point did I find myself with nothing to do. I think the important thing to do is be proactive in finding work for yourself if you start to find that your diary is emptying a little bit. For example, email your Line Manager and ask if there are any other projects you can work on, or ask if it is possible to use this free time to have calls with Sneior Managers or people in other departments to find out about their work and their career path - or even if you can take the time to shadow someone in a different department. Beyond this, you can also use any free moments to choose some online e-learning courses to complete which will help your personal development - as there are lots available.

I was given the responsibility to complete research tasks, produce content and do presentations which helped to move projects forwards towards their end goal. The work I did was on actual projects which would have an effect on colleagues and was important in securing buy-in from stakeholders. I never felt overwhlemed with the responsibility I was given - while I was challenged at times, such as by being given the responsiblity to lead presentations to the Head of the team, this was good for development. Overall, this was a good level of responsibility.

The skills I developed and training I recieved will be invaluable in my future career beyond university. It gave me a good insight into a corporate working environment, and allowed me to learn about how to network, communicate and work in this environment. The importance of networking was really emphasised to me throughout my internship and will definitely be something I will remember going forward. Furthermore, skills learnt about how to present myself and my achievements in the best light possible will be useful throughout my life. I also learnt a lot about how to make and present presentations within a corporate environment, including what they should look like and the process it takes to produce these. The skills and training I recieved was not just through official training through online course and webinars but also came about through my everyday work, interactions with others and little conversations.

The office environment I was in was very quiet - however, my office was not a typical office. There are very few people who regularly come into my office every day - most people come in only when they need to or on certain days. However, it was also a very close-knit environment. It meant I knew everyone in the office and everyone was alays extremely friendly, helpful and welcoming. I visited different offices in London which had a very different atmosphere - they felt much more busy and fast-paced. They had more of a 'buzz.' My office did have a good atmosphere but it was more laid back.

Overall, the internship was very well-organised - bar a few small slip ups. The main slip up was that I was not assigned into a 'Charity Challenge' group and when I emailed to point out this oversight and ask to be assigned to a group I got no reply. It was only once I got someone else in my team involved to contact the organisers that this issue was solved - but by this point it was already a week and a half into the challenge, causing me to miss some vital meetings including the assignment of roles which was not ideal. Apart from this however, the internship was organised extremely well. My Line Manager was very prepared - he had my laptop and phone all ready and set up for me to use and he had all my project work lined up for me. As well as this, the central team organised a good welcoming event for all interns, as well as four introductory webinars for the first four weeks, that made the internship feel like it was set up and organised well. They also made sure they provided lots of information about how the referral process onto the Grad scheme would work. This made me feel like the 10 weeks were very structured and organised.

I feel as if the company was very invested in my personal development. There was mandatory online training which had to be completed over the course of the internship and four 1 hour development webinars were organised on topics such as making a good first impression, which were extremely helpful, well-thought out and aimed at interns. Within this, there was always the chance for questions and answers at the end. Beyond this, at introductory events it was emphasised that we should make the most out of the 10 weeks and that our development would be most improved if we organised weekly meetings with our Line Manager to reflect on our targets. I took this advice and my Line Manager was happy to have these meetings, taking the time to make sure I reflected on my work and performance and that I got lots of different development opportunities. This involved talking to different senior managers about their experiences and career, and they were all happy to have these conversations.

I lived in shared accommodation with other interns but I did not find it particularly sociable. While if I did happen to bump into one of them we would always have a friendly chat, I found that I hardly ever saw any of them. Everytime I came in after work, the flat would be quiet - everyone would seem to stay in their rooms by themselves. I know that in the first week a night out was organised by some interns, which a few people went to but this was on a Thursday evening so I missed it, seeing as I had to get up at 6am and drive for half an hour to an hour to get to work in the morning! However, I was also based in an office where I was the only intern which made it difficult to get to know other interns anyway. Most people (myself included) seemed to go away at the weekends so I can imagine the weekends would have been very lonely if you stayed.

The cost of living is good. If you do not live within commuting distance you are provided with accommodation free of charge. This is an extremely good deal and not something which I have seen any other companies offer. Seeing as accommodation is the most costly part of living - this is the factor which oftens means people don't have much of their earnings left at the end of an internship because its all gone straight on rent - with this internship you completely avoid that problem. You do not have to stress or worry about finding somewhere to live or how you will afford it. Food and drink prices are average/normal for a big city.