Finance Intern Review

I really enjoyed my placement. My work colleagues were friendly and helpful and the office atmosphere was positive and uplifting. I was given a lot of responsibility, as soon as I was ready. My placement gave me the opportunity to develop existing skills and learn a lot of new ones.

I felt very valued by my colleagues, I never felt like just an intern. My colleagues helped me find my feet when I first started the role and this support continued throughout my placement. I got to know the colleagues in my direct team and also colleagues in the wider department.

I was given a lot of support during my placement. The HR team ran quarterly workshops for all the interns and which gave us a lot of support to make our time better at Virgin. I also had fortnightly meetings with my manager to discuss personal development and any issues I had.

The nature of my role meant that I had some busy and some less busy periods. However, when workload was light I was encouraged to take on extra responsibilities. I had the opportunity to widen my knowledge and skills. I also made improvements to current processes when workload was light.

I was given a reasonable amount of responsibility during my placement. The responsibility I was given was in line with my capability; I was given more challenging roles as I became more comfortable to do so. If I wanted more responsibility I felt comfortable in asking for more tasks to work on.

I learnt a lot of skills which I can now use in my degree and beyond. I developed skills in; time management, attention to detail, organisation, Microsoft Excel and communication, both written and verbal. Completing a placement has also helped me to decide what I’d like to do after university.

The office atmosphere at Virgin Media was very positive and friendly yet professional. I felt comfortable when interacting with other colleagues yet the atmosphere was never distracting. There were breakout areas in the office if you needed a break or needed to work alone. The atmosphere around the office made it nice to work there.

The internship was well organised. We had a head of year who was there for us when we had any questions regarding our role. We also had quarterly workshops held by the HR team and all the other interns at Virgin Media. These helped a lot regarding our personal development.

Virgin invested time in the interns regarding personal training and development. They held quarterly workshops to help us with personal development plans, CV tips, graduate schemes, skills improvement and team building. They planned different tasks and organised numerous guest speakers from around the business to speak to us about their experience.

Future prospects within this organisation are very appealing. I was given a lot of information regarding graduate schemes on offer at Virgin Media. I also was given time to go an explore my options, I had meetings with numerous colleagues to speak about their experiences and opinions on different schemes.

There was a good social scene at Virgin both within the interns and my team. In our first week we were took bowling to meet all the other interns. In the first few months I went on a team building day/night in London. During the year I also attended two other fun team building events.

The cost of living in the area around work was quite expensive. The area around the office is very residential. Also the area was on the outskirts of London which obviously makes house pricing and socialising costs more expensive. As I am from the North of England this was expensive from my point of view.

The area around work was very quiet and residential. There was not a lot on offer in terms of nightlife apart from a few pubs, which meant that drinks after work were rare. However, where I lived was a big town with good nightlife, pubs and restaurants. The journey to London was 30 minutes.

At the Virgin Media offices where I worked there weren’t that many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work. My team organised a 5 a side football match every week however, it was mainly for the men. If we wanted to be involved in activities it was mainly up to ourselves to organise.