Controlling Placement Student Review

Working for Faurecia over the past year has been fairly enjoyable, I have enjoyed some of the task I have been given and like that we are given a lot of trust here to get jobs completed in our own time. As well as the job itself, we also do a charity challenge with all the other students across the UK. This was really fun to interact with all the other students.

As I worked within a small team, I knew that my jobs really did contribute to not only our department but also the rest of the plant. This was nice as everybody treated me the same as any other Faurecia employee and not just like a student. I felt very welcomed here by all of the staff.

Due to my situation of having a manager turnaround part way through the year, I did not receive as much support as I would have liked from my managers. Luckily I had very supportive colleagues who trained and help me throughout my placement year. My new manager does make slightly more effort with me now that she has settled into her job more but still does tend to leave me to it.

At the beginning of my placement I was not that busy. Although it was a bit boring it was for the best as I was new to the role and needed more time to familiarize myself with the routine procedures expected of me. Over the course of the year I have been given more work to the point where now, I always have something to do and keep myself busy.

Placements at Faurecia do say they give their students a lot of responsibility, unlike some who just say this Faurecia really do! It does feel at first like being thrown in the deep end but it has been the most effective way to learn and develop confidence working within a real industry. As well as been given big jobs to complete you are also expected to manage your own time. This is really good for developing your time management skills as you don't have that university environment of deadlines and lecturer pestering you. Here, you are treated like a proper employee and not babied by other members of staff.

I could not have expected how much I would learn during my placement year as what I have at Faurecia. I have no only learnt about the job role I do within Finance but have also learn so many other skills. I improved mainly my soft skills working here, such as my knowledge of Excel and SAP. As well as developing IT skills my confidence as really improved here, I can now talk to higher ups within company on a more professional level and send professional emails out; this was something I always found very nerve racking. The skills I have learnt at Faurecia will really help with my final year at university and future career path. I am very thankful for how much I have develop as a professional at Faurecia.

As Faurecia is a french company my office is maturity french people, this is really nice as I got to experience a new working culture. The offices at Faurecia have a very relaxed atmosphere its not strictly quiet, people occasionally have a chat and a laugh but also know when get on with work. We also bring in food and make things for everyone to eat frequently which makes it a really nice place to work.

The organisation of the work placement was not the best in my case. This may have been due to the manger whom I had at the time. Although HR set up a handover period when I arrived I don't think any of my department really knew what to do with me. Over time it was got better but initially I did feel a bit out of place. Other aspects of the placement were well organised, we received our uniforms promptly and also got taken for a two day induction in a conference hotel. This was a great way to start the placement.

I think the Faurecia do invest a lot into their students, the give you so many skills and have set up a graduate scheme where they recruit exclusively there old placement students. This is why I would really recommend doing a placement here as if you do well it opens so many doors post graduation.

Faurecia do offer a lot in terms of future employment. This being their graduate scheme and also they do a VIE scheme which allows you to work for a Faurecia plant abroad. As Faurecia is a large globally present company it really can offer their employees a lot.I defiantly would be interested in perusing a career here.

The Faurecia plant that i work in take on roughly 7/8 placement student and on top of that graduate students. This means that there is a lot of colleagues of a similar age. Over the year colleagues have organised activities outside of working hours such as bowling trip and nights out. Therefore I would say that there is quite a good social scene for students working at Faurecia.

I commuted from home for my placement year as I only lived about a 45 minute drive away. From what I heard off students who did move to be closer is that the closest town Lichfield was really nice although the price of living costs are quite high. some of the student chose to live in Birmingham and commute in from there.

Lichfield has lots of night pubs and bars that do stay open quite late and occasionally have club nights. If anyone did want to go on a night out we would usual go out in Birmingham which is not too far away. As a few student lived in Birmingham it was preferred to go out there.

Faurecia did not organize anything outside of work for their employees however, a lot of the colleagues would. The commercial sales department who would occasionally work at our plant always organised bowling trips after work that I frequently attended. This was really nice to see people outside of work. As well as bowling the engineering department started up a running club after work, a lot of student attend as well as employees from all over the plant.