Marketing Finance Analyst Review

I greatly enjoyed my placement year at Intel. From the very beginning, I was treated like a valued member of my team and given meaningful tasks. There were ups and downs as there was a mid year restructuring of the company, but overall the interns were well treated and mostly unaffected. For the most part, the company is a great place to work with an amazing atmosphere and a community feel, particularly because of the large numbers of other interns on site and the general friendliness of all of the full time employees.

Throughout my placement, I received nothing but respect from my colleagues. I had a 5 week handover with the intern that I was replacing and another 5 weeks with the intern that is replacing me so that I can handover my role and ensure that they are fully prepared and integrated into the team. All of the interns here are treated exactly the same as full time employees, receiving the same benefits/perks and also the same expectations with respect to performance and conduct.

I received an equal proportion of my managers time to the rest of my team with respect to discussions about my development and assistance with my work when required. I had weekly meetings with my manager to discuss everything from how my placement was going to a friendly chat about how life was going in general. I had three different managers throughout my placement year (one left the company and another went on maternity leave) but all of them were incredibly friendly and approachable people and also invested in me, both from a development and a personal standpoint.

I was extremely busy for the first several months of my placement. I didn't have to work overtime but I was never bored or short of work to do whilst at the office. Throughout the final months of my placement, my job role changed slightly and I ended up with a lot less work. However, this allowed me time to proactively seek out other work and I was able to spend a lot of time helping out my team with any work that they needed doing. Intel also allows opportunity for interns to work on projects within other teams, and so I was able to gain a lot of additional experience in other departments.

I felt like a valuable part of my team and had a full time job; if they did not have an intern to fill that position, a full time employee would have needed to be hired. Moreover, I was regularly trusted to help my team with a variety of tasks including but not limited to working on producing information for financial close, which ultimately would make up a part of the financial statements reviewed by the public and investors.

Throughout the placement year, I gained a lot of insight into the real world applications of what I had learned at university. This additional insight (and improved work ethic after spending a year in industry) will undoubtedly help me throughout my final year at university. Moreover, having already spent a year working it will be much easier for me to start work and adapt to an office environment post university, not to mention the increased employability. However I wouldn't say that I'd learned anything that would directly help me with the content of my studies next year at university.

The general office atmosphere wasn't great for all of my internship. While my team stayed mostly positive throughout the year, a restructuring of the company made a lot of people concerned for their jobs and created an atmosphere of uncertainty. Everyone was always friendly and helpful, and the changes didn't affect interns, although the underlying atmosphere of tension was easily noticeable.

Intel offers around 50 internships to university students and has done for a long time. Many of my colleagues here have worked at Intel for years and originally started off in the company's internship program. As a result, they have a lot of experience in providing internships and everything was organised really well, from the handover period where I was trained to my previous interns, to the numerous intern led societies that made us a community.

I received 5 weeks training from my previous intern on starting my role. Additional online training and courses were provided and encouraged throughout my internship. I also had development meetings with my manager in order to track my progress and ensure that I was getting the most out of my internship. I was also able to shadow people in other departments of my company and subsequently work on projects with them in order to further develop my knowledge base and skillset.

I personally have fully enjoyed my placement year. I like the area and the people here. I would genuinely be excited at the prospect of returning as a full time employee. Interns that perform well are regularly hired back as graduates and so there is the opportunity to do so.

There is a large community of interns within the company and a number of societies to take part in. This results in numerous activities to take part in outside of work, including but not limited to sports, nights out and games of table tennis or table football in the Intel games room.

Intel is located in Swindon which isn't the nicest area in the world, but equally there is a fair amount to do. Swindon isn't too expensive of a place to live, I was easily able to find a house on shareroom within walking distance of work, shops, bars and a lot of other social activities - eg a cinema complex.

The nightlife in Swindon isn't the best. There are a couple of clubs and bars, but nothing to write home about. Having said that, Swindon is located a short train journey away from London, Reading and Bristol, which means that you're never far away from a city with great nightlife if possible

There are a lot of activities to get involved with outside of work. A lot of activities were organised within the intern community that we can take part in, including football games, minigolf, nights out, a weekend away (an annual weekend where all of the interns got together and rented out a large house together where we were all able to hang out, party, walk in nature, bbq and much more).