Strategy & Insight Analyst Review

I've had a fantastic year with Virgin Media, the company is an incredibly fun place to work with lots of extra activities to get stuck into. I am going to very sad to leave the company to return back to university, but I hope to return and carry on working on the graduate scheme.

I felt very valued within my team and was not treated as if I was an intern, but as a regular employee within the company. I was given a lot of tough objectives to complete, which felt daunting at the start, but then I realised that this work was given to me because my manager believed I could do a good job and produce great outcomes.

I had weekly 121's with my manager to make sure I was progressing with my projects, could ask any questions and to check that I was enjoying myself at work. I sat with my team for the full duration of my placement and this was fantastic to aiding in my understanding of the department and the role.

I was busy most of the time, it would have been very easy to sit back and not do much work. You had to motivate yourself and keep yourself busy as deadlines were set, but not always. I had several daily tasks to complete on top of my yearly objectives.

I was given a lot of responsibility during my placement, anything that I wanted to do and progress was allowed and I was in complete control of all of my projects. I decided that I wanted to do some shadowing days with other teams in different departments within Virgin Media, which was a great opportunity to understand more about the business.

I learnt a lot of skills during my placement and also jumped at the opportunity to learn. SQL was a very powerful tool I learnt as I was required to use it daily to gather all my data. Virgin Media also set up several training days throughout the year for the interns to develop ourselves. These days were fantastic, as a lot of information was given to us.

The atmosphere is a fun and relaxed environment, we are allowed to dress smart casual. There is always fun incentives on the floor, where it is taking part in a game a video or entering into a charity task. The fun never stops and the office has a bright and exciting interior design, which allows you to act and think creatively.

The placement has been very well organised, we have had several training days throughout the year as well as charity challenges. Any questions I have had have been able to be answer quickly by simply contacting the Internship Scheme advisors. I was assigned a buddy before I started and they were able to help me understand my job role as well as answer any questions about the new area I was moving to.

There are several courses on the Virgin Media systems for us to get stuck into, my manager has encouraged me to take part in as many as possible while I am here. The training days tailored for just the interns have been key to personal development, as well as working along side my team - learning from them every day.

I would love to return to Virgin Media on the Graduate Scheme that will follow on from my Placement Scheme. There is a fast track process fro current interns to apply to the graduate scheme, which will mean that we will know if we will be returning to the graduate scheme by the end of our placement year.

There has been a good social scene at virgin in the work place, but the social scene is what you make of it. The only downside I found was that the office I was based in there was very few interns to socialise with, in the head office the graduate and intern community is very large. Social events were set up at Christmas and throughout the year for us to attend if we wanted.

Living in Birmingham was affordable if you were smart with your money. I paid for rent, car and general bills and had enough disposable income to have fun, although I saved little money due to having a low salary and living away from home. There are plenty of places to eat, drink and party in Birmingham and it can be done cheaply.

The nightlife in Birmingham is incredible, it has a bit of everything for everyone and I have not experienced even and 1/8 of what it has to offer as there is just to much to do and not enough weekends in the year. There is more than enough to keep you occupied on your weekends.

There were plenty of opportunities to get involved in plenty of activities to name a few that I took part in; T20 Cricket, Volunteering Day, Comic Relief Call Taking, Charity work, Birmingham Half Marathon Volunteering, etc... There is also plenty going on in the city centre for that to keep you occupied.