Sales & Pricing Operations Industrial Placement Review

My placement year within 3M has been the most enjoyable of my life so far. To learn and develop skills in an applied way compared to University makes the year more interesting and beneficial and with my experience within my placement, it has opened many different career paths which I would have never thought to pursue before.

I was very surprised of how much trust and respect I was given from the Get-Go within my team, you do feel that your role is a real-life job. I have been given a number of Performance Recognition awards within my role due to going above and beyond my job description which does make you feel a valued member of huge corporation such as 3M.

There have been countless times when my team leader or line manager have given me support in tasks where I feel out of my comfort zone. Weekly catch-ups and reviews with my line manager helped me discuss any work-related or personal issues and also go over skills and techniques to combat my weaker areas.

Initially my workload was low due to the business transformation occurring 3 months into my placement but afterwards started to grow very rapidly. At one stage it felt like my workload was unmanageable which led to regularly working over my weekly working hours and stress but with support from my team leader and line manager I have learnt different techniques to still work efficiently even with a larger workload.

The amount of responsibility I have within my role is way over my expectations before entering my placement year. Working with multiple business stakeholders across 33 different business divisions has given me great exposure and networks which I'm hoping I can use as soon as I graduate. Just two weeks into my placement, I was holding training workshops on a administration application to a whole team of 20 people!

The amount and complexity of skills I have learned this year has made me completely change my planned future career path of Data Analytics. University is a great place to learn theories but 3M has helped learn so much more applied skills which employers are seeking so I now feel ready to go into a successful job future.

At the start of my placement, I unfortunately didn't have a laptop for the first week at 3M and when I did receive my laptop, it did take a few weeks for access to be approved. After the early hiccups though my placement has gone without a hitch. Our placement coordinator has been great and has been really useful when I've had questions and any issues.

One of my aims at the start of the year is to try and get myself a role within 3M after University but due to an employment freeze it is probably not possible. I have had my contract extended which shows that I am a key member within my team so it may be the start in conversations regarding my future.

There isn't that much to do around 3M's headquarters surrounding area as there is currently a lot of renovation work in Bracknell's town centre which is due to be finished by 2018. Only 20 minutes on the train is Reading which has large amount of restaurants, bars and clubs to offer and has a more student-like feel due to Reading University.

There are a number of sports and social clubs run by 3M employees which include badminton to walking clubs. Outside of my role, there are plenty of opportunities to get involved in projects that are ran through the talent development team. I have participated in a Diversity project with fellow IP's which has led to me to take part in planning a number of events and also be a part of an IP Q&A panel, organised by ourselves, which was open to all employees which went successfully.