Digital Marketing Industrial Trainee Review

I had the most supportive team and manager, the range of training offered was incredible and I was involved in a large range of exciting projects. My placement completely blew my expectations. Pfizer is such a warm and friendly company, I would recommend it to anyone.

My team were always looking out for projects I could help out with or lead on. Colleagues outside of my team were keen to get interns involved in projects which was great. Pfizer has a great placement scheme where Industrial Trainees are valued across the company and colleagues treat us with respect like any other colleague.

I had one to ones with my manager and team lead every few weeks where we went over current projects, looked at new opportunities and just had an informal catch up. My manager would always make time if I had a question day to day. They were also happy to help me with my placement university work.

In this role it really did depend on the day. Sometimes I would have enough work to make the day go super fast, and other days I didn't have as much to do as I was waiting on work back from others, reviews etc. It's just the nature of the job. I never felt overworked though! There was usually someone who could pass over some work to fill up spare time. Most days I'd have a meeting or two which broke up the work day.

From pretty much day one I lead on several of my own projects which were given by either my manager or a colleague in my team. I was responsible for the projects, but always had someone to check anything with. My team trusted me to just get on with the project and they'd check up every week or so.

The training offered for colleagues at Pfizer is phenomenal. For the first few months I had a training course nearly every week, ranging from finance, digital marketing, marketing, the Pharma industry and lots more. Some of the marketing training covered subjects I had studied at uni which was great. I have learnt way more this year from my training than I have in two years at uni. The training was always delivered by experts and colleagues from all over the world attended, showing the real value. There was also an opportunity to gain a YellowBelt certification and be a STEM ambassador. My personal skills have developed over the year enormously and I feel more than ready now for the working world. I could not have thought of anywhere better than Pfizer to take my placement year.

The headquarters is a lovely, airy, open building. Depending on the day, it could get quite busy which was nice to see field colleagues once a week or so. I couldn't fault a single person at Pfizer that I met. Everyone was incredibly welcoming, warm and friendly and was really excited about the new Industrial Trainees. They did events for Christmas, volunteering week etc, and they would frequently stream the US senior team and the office would get together in the restaurant.

The recruitment process was very organised and I received frequent communications from the HR team on any updates. Some students had handovers with their previous IT, I didn't however. But I did meet them for a day over the summer and we did a handover then. This was great as I got to meet my team and see the offices again before starting, making me much less nervous for my first day. When I started I had a few projects to take on that were left by the previous IT, but due to the nature of 'digital' there weren't projects waiting in the pipeline. I took projects on as they came up.

The training they offered was outstanding. They invest heavily in the training and experiences ITs get. A lot of interns are able to travel frequently in the UK or abroad. Every month or so I would go on a trip somewhere within the UK.

I would definitely consider returning for a head office role in the future. The way that I was treated over the year has left a very positive impact on the company.

We all started in September, so up until about Christmas, the interns (there were about 40 of us), would get together once a month or so and go to bars, restaurants, have a house party etc. After Christmas, we did more in smaller groups as we got closer.

I lived in Epsom, Surrey, for the year and rent was very expensive. It's an expensive area for restaurants and bars. There wasn't that much to do in the local area, so i preferred to get the train (£4.50) to London and explore London on the weekends. This was obviously very expensive too!

There were a few bars and clubs in Epsom and the local area as there is one university. But nothing to get excited over! It was definitely worth going to Clapham/Kingston/London on the weekends and paying for the taxi. There were a couple of really nice pubs close to the offices, we'd occasionally go for an after work drink and dinner.

There was a gym which ran clubs like running, football, rounders. These mostly happened during the summer only. Volunteering is big at Pfizer so I enjoyed doing volunteering activities outside of work.