HR Generalist Review

I absolutely loved my placement!! Not only from a work perspective as I found the work and my rotations interesting and enjoyable but also from a social perspective - being part of the industrial placement cohort made my placement fun and even more memorable.

I felt part of the team right from the beginning, and if I ever did a good piece of work I would be recognised for this, not only through comments but also 'thank you' cards through Computacenter's reward and recognition system (EIA)

I had monthly 1:1 meetings with my manager where I would talk about my progress and voice any concerns.

The HR Co-ordinator team never has a quiet day but I liked this as I never sat there twiddling my thumbs wondering what to do - because of this every day I was learning something new and experiencing new challenges.

I was given responsibility from day 1. However, as I got more confident and comfortable with the work I was able to take on more responsibility at my own pace. I was doing the same job as my team which I really liked as I never felt like a placement student.

Every day was invaluable work experience and the skills I've developed as a consequence have given me a lot of confidence. It's made me knuckle down more at university this year as I am keen to get the best grade and then enter the world of work as soon as possible.

HR is the best department to work in. Everyone is welcoming and friendly but there's also a real family feel. We had 'thanks thursday' most weeks where we would stand around in the office and congratulate anyone who'd received a thank you card this week. There were also always charity raising events on in the office, such a bake offs or dress down days which really raised the energy in the office.

I knew exactly what I would be doing on my placement from the moment I applied - it was always really clear. After 8 months of doing the Co-ordinator role I was able to pick my own rotations for the last 4 months of placement. I told my manager what I wanted to do and she did the initial contact with the other teams to organise this. Each rotation was well planned out as well.

I took an excel and PowerPoint course. There were a lot of opportunities to take other training courses such as presentation skills, presence and impact etc. Although they were available to me and offered by my manager I didn't chose not to go on any. However a lot of other placement students did.

I would like to return to the company one day. Firstly I want to go on a graduate scheme and unfortunately Computacenter doesn't offer an HR graduate scheme, but once I have further experience under my belt I would like to return.

There were 16 placement students, we met every day for lunch which was really nice and we also did a lot of things in the evening. I re-located to Hatfield (where CC is based) and lived with 4 other placement students, this definitely made my placement year really fun and I have definitely made friends for life.

It was pretty standard costs. Only being 20 minutes from London is obviously going to have a slight impact on rent but it wasn't much more than when I lived at university so this wasn't a problem for me. Plus you are earning money so you can afford it!!!

London is only 20 minute on the train so there loads of places to go there. St Albans was about a 10 minute taxi so we regularly went there which was fun! Also Watford is close.

HR put on a couple of sports evenings when the weather was nice. There were also opportunities to meet people after work for drinks. But more importantly if you wanted to organise an event outside of work then the department were always on board for getting involved, for example myself and the Future talent Placement student hosted a charity gameshow evening that had lots of interest and we raised lots of money!!