Technical Developement Analyst Review

I enjoyed working at GSK a great deal. I love the atmosphere and family-like feel of the organisation. My role was interesting and never so repetitive to the point that I got bored.

I feel that I was treated as a full member of staff and my work was valued.

Support and guidance was always given when asked for. Management was always very approachable and respectful of my points of view and my contributions to the team.

I was rarely bored or left with nothing to do. Workload was distributed fairly at the beginning of each week. I was always able to communicate whether I felt I had too much on my plate or if I felt that I had the time/ability to take on any incoming work packages.

I took on a regular influx of non-routine analysis for site critical processes. Sometimes this work would be incredibly urgent to allow for the manufacture of products to continue or to release batches and so my results were often communicated at a high level, I considered this quite a big responsibility but never a level of responsibility that I wasn't comfortable with.

I have developed a strong ambition and a genuine passion for the pharmaceutical industry. I have become self motivated with proactive approach to work. I have adapted to working in a busy and fast paced environment, resulting in an improvement upon my ability to work under pressure as well as my ability to multitask. Through the challenges I faced I learnt resilience and built upon my time-management, dedication, attention to detail and problem solving abilities.

Friendly, chatty, approachable but results focussed.

Day to day work was very well organised and easily tracked. Larger projects (ie my project to be written up for uni) were sometimes less organised due to competing site priorities, which could be stressful as obviously for my, completing uni work also had to be a priority.

Opportunities for training development were always given where appropriate.

Very appealing. Graduate scheme's and direct entry applications are available at the end of your placement year in most departments, both of which I have signed up for.

There were only 5 placement students on site and 3 grads. We all got on very well and organised a lot of out of work activities.

Cost of living was quite cheap compared with university (£500 pcm for a newly renovated 2 bedroom flat). Socialising is also cheap but bearing in mind the almost rural location of the placement, things to do were limited without travelling to nearby cities.

Again, due to the size of the town in which the placement is situated, there was not a huge amount of nightlife - the nearest city is 25 minutes away if in need of a good night out.

There are opportunities for sports/outdoor activities.