Intern Review

I have really enjoyed my internship at Hays. I feel as though I have had a better experience than my friends who have also done placement years for different companies have. I have been given a lot of responsibility and have been treated like a permanent member of staff.

I have felt extremely valued by my colleagues. I get treated the same as everyone else and get given the same responsibility as everyone else too. There is a good team ethic and I have gone on team nights and team meals and feel as though I am a valued member of the team.

I have been given a lot of support by my mangers and guidance. Any issue that I have had or if I have struggled with something, there has been someone there to help me. I have had 3 different line managers in my year at Hays so because of this, I feel that there have been times where the support wasn't as much as it could have been, but still it has always been way above average or expected.

I have had a balanced workload through out. I have planned my days out and my targets haven't been unreachable. Meeting my targets has been the basis for my workload, which I feel that I have met for the majority of my time working here. There has only been 3 occasions where I have stayed later than expected and that has been because I wanted to get something done for the next morning and not because I have needed to.

I have been given a lot of responsibility. I have been given the same amount, as people who work here full time, if not more than some people. I feel as though I have been given the opportunity to learn as much as I can, and this has been from the responsibility that I have been given.

I have developed a lot of skills through out this year, such as time management, team working and organisational skills. I have developed skills and had training of stuff such as Business development, which will help me when finding a career after university and ensure that I am confident in talking to people on a professional level. I have learnt more about marketing, mapping markets, marketing products and advertising, which will help me with my marketing modules that I have at university.

It has been a great atmosphere. It has been professional, but the people are quite laid back. As long as you do the work and work hard, you are respected and get rewarded. People work as a team to hit the 4 week targets that are set, and if this is achieved we get rewarded well for it. The atmosphere is kept up through business development days and blitz days, where people are put into teams and activities around work are done to win team points, in which the winning team gets rewarded in some way. Everyone is friendly, and help is always there if needed.

For myself and the people that started at the same time as me, it could have been better. The reason for this is that so many people started on the same day that we were split into interns and associates in training groups. The interns were forgot about and not sent a training plan. meaning that I did not receive my training until a month after I started, when it was suppose to start on the first day and last for the first month. Every intern that started after this did get the training and we were eventually added onto a later program once the error had been noticed. If I had been put on the training program at the very beginning this would have been a 10, but this error has made me lower the score because there was a lot that I didn't know for a while because of this.

As mentioned in the previous box, my training was delayed, but after this error was noticed, I have given the same training scheme as everyone else. I have been sent on to several courses throughout my time that have helped me, and had several on the floor training activities. I feel as though I am always getting coached on how to do things better if I am struggling and I feel as though the same about gets invested into an intern as a normal member of staff.

Extremely appealing. With interns, if they offer you to come back you get the opportunity of being promoted after 6 months instead of 9 months. Which is extremely appealing. The structure at Hays is good, and promotions are done on performance and not just when an opening occurs. I would definitely come back to Hays given the opportunity.

There was a good social scene. A lot of the people who work at Hays are young, so there is a good culture and atmosphere. There are a lot of work events and rewards for hitting target. There is a pub next door where discounts are given to Hays staff, which a lot of employees go to outside of work to socialise.

It was very expensive for the salary. In order to live I had to make sure that I was hitting my monthly bonus otherwise I would have been left short for the month. Rent was expensive and so was socialising and travel from where I lived. This was because it was in London and not living with my parents. A lot of the other interns did not live on there own but lived with parents to ensure that they could afford to socialise.

Extremely good. I was based in central London, so there were bars, clubs and restaurants all around. There was some good places a short walk away, Victoria station has a lot around it such as the theatres and restaurants and Leicester square, Oxford circus and Soho are all less than a 10 minute tube journey away.

The office has a football team, where they play 5-a-side each week against other teams in the area. Charity runs and other charity activities have been arranged. The opportunity is always given to put forward an idea to the rest of the office for activities. We also had social reps that arranged activities such as pub quizzes and pedi-bikes after work. Team activities take place, where each team goes to Winter Wonderland in the winter, and team meals occur every few months.