HR Specialist Review

My placement with Sony Europe has been by far one of my most enjoyable life experiences to date. The placement has provided me with a practical insight into the corporate world and taught me skills that cannot be acquired at university. Sony provides hands on internships with graduate level responsibility, the opportunity to travel and a platform to network with a vast amount of like-minded individuals worldwide.

My team and colleagues were paramount to my experience being so enjoyable. Sony have an open door policy and are a company that actively encourage your curiosity. As an intern with no previous experience in a corporate environment, having a team that actively encourages you to ask questions it made the transition from the university lifestyle to the working lifestyle much easier.

In my particular area, I could not fault my guidance provide by management. My line manager was always very open and supportive with me from my first day onwards. I was trained properly on the appropriate systems and given guidance throughout the year to help me develop.

Having worked across four different business areas, it has been safe to say I have been busy throughout the year. Sony are very good with intrusting interns with appropriate work loads based on your capability. Having actively gained more and more responsibility throughout the year, Sony has given me the opportunity to travel abroad multiple times to support different projects!

At Sony the more you build trust with your colleagues and prove you are capable the more responsibility you'll receive. Having actively sought responsibility throughout the year by involving myself in different projects, Sony allowed me to work and even lead projects.

I learnt more skills and practical business knowledge in my first month with Sony than I have with my two years at university. Being immersed into a business on a global scale you learn so many different skills. I now can confidently complete advanced level tasks on excel and would feel comfortable presenting too a large audience.

The work environment had a very upbeat and friendly atmosphere. I often find myself on a day to day basis talking to a number of different people who work from around the business. If you are willing to put yourself out there any try to network with individuals, Sony provides the perfect place to do so.

I had a very organised work placement from the offset. I had been put in contact with all of the other successful applicants before my start date in July which gave us plenty of time to organise housing. I had my company laptop and mobile all ready for when I started and a schedule of the training I would be doing to get me up to speed with my role.

Sony invested a lot of time and effort to develop me over the year. I have spent numerous one to one meetings with my manager to set KPI's and personally objectives to achieve by the end of year. My manager set out a clear plan and guidelines on how to achieve them and allowed me to attend numerous training events through out the year on things like excel.

Sony is a company that I would love to work for in the future. Being a global company there a multitude of opportunities around the business and a driven workforce there to push you. Having just restarted their graduate programme, Sony now has more opportunity for individuals at graduate entry level roles and for individuals who completed the placement should have a strong chance of success.

With just over 30 interns working at Sony Electronics, they were split between Weybridge/Basingstoke. Having lived in Weybridge for the whole year with other interns, there has been a really good relationship with everybody outside of work. Often going for drinks after work or playing football at the weekend, the year I have made some really close friends who I hope to see next year at university.

Weybridge is known for being a generally expensive area due to the 30 minute direct train into central London. However, this year has been very affordable and I have actually managed to save money. Living with the other interns massively reduces cost and not living in London also has a huge affect on the price of living. We have found socialising more expensive than university but very reasonable considering the location.

Weybridge is not known for its nightlife and generally is not a place that you would go out in. There are many nice pubs as Weybridge is very scenic but bars and night clubs are few and far between. That being said we have not found socialising an issue due to the small commute to central London and have actually quite enjoyed being able to live outside of the city but still enjoy the nightlife.

This is an area I think Sony can improve on for future internships. Although, I have been lucky with my placement as I have had the opportunity to travel with my work - Sony does not provide many outside of work activities. Apart from the Christmas party and the football team, Sony is quite limited with outside of work activities and it is only the interns that encourage this.