Industrial Placement Student Review

The overall experience I gained within a 12 month period across 4 different business lines can be described as a very valuable experience from the level of exposure and involvement within the majority of my time at Atlas Copco. At Atlas Copco, you are thrown in the deep end, which may not be suited for all however, I like to take on challenges and prepared to get straight into it.

At Atlas Copco, although I was 'only' a placement student, I was treated as an employee of the company demonstrated through social events, the use of the work I provided and day to day engagement with colleagues at all levels of management. However with only short periods within each business line, I feel it did effect how some colleagues would value us as placement students.

Whilst at Atlas Copco, as placement students we were never alone or had nobody to turn to for support and guidance. We were allocated supervisors/mentors and managers who we would report to within each rotation of the placement. A mentor provided the upmost support and guidance throughout. Not only were they focused on helping the work we produced but also collaborating and making sure we get the most out of the experience there. E.g. the involvement in representing the brand at Exhibitions

We were given projects to focus on which would spread across the 3 month duration we were in whilst in each of the business lines. At times, I was not able to continue particular projects without the knowledge or information which then left me twiddling my thumbs at times. There was not much day to day responsibilities for me.

The projects that were given to me were not just the easy or administrative day to day stuff which elevated a number of my own skills. For example, I was asked to create an Distributor Audit which I had not ever heard of before. This required me to visit each of the Distributors across UK & Ireland and gather research to feedback in order to improve Atlas Copco's Construction & Mining distribution channels. Their distribution network is a major channel for sales so I feel I had a lot of responsibility throughout this project.

Project management and time management are the major skills I believe have developed the most whilst at Atlas Copco. They have improved drastically and played a major part in my final year of university as the work load increased significantly within a short period of time. This meant the need to plan in advance and manage each project accordingly.

The rotations around the Atlas Copco office was a great atmosphere and good working environment. The general atmosphere is that everybody knows what needs to be done and are working hard towards it which helped motivated myself to make sure I produce high quality work in order to leave my mark behind. However, as my rotation came to their sister company at CP and Desoutter, the atmosphere was not matching. It was like a library.

The work placement was very well set up and if there were any issues, HR who were the ambassadors of the program were always on hand to help with anything. At each rotation, there were no implications and the swap around's of laptops/phones and email addresses were straight forward processes.

Having received very positive feedback after completing my placement there, I decided not to apply for any of the graduate or job positions at Atlas Copco. Reason being, is NOT based on the colleagues or company itself but their industries they focus on are not of my interest. I would also prefer to focus on B2C rather than B2B. However, I would definitely recommend Atlas Copco for employment to anyone.

There was not a regular social event for fellow colleagues however, from my knowledge placement students were always invited along to any events after work colleagues may arrange. We were all invited to the Christmas Parties each of the business lines and which business line we was in at the time. I was lucky enough to be in Compressors the biggest business line of the business and therefore experienced their largest yet, all expenses paid for Christmas party in Sheffield.

I commuted to work which was a 45 minute drive each way. I believe the placement is pretty well paid as a placement. As to socialising, I can't comment on as when meals or anything was planned, the company would usually pay for this. Hot lunches in there canteen were very cheap which helped reduce costs.

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