Technical Sales Engineer Review

I had an excellent placement year working for Pall Corporation (Pall Europe) as a Technical inside Sales Engineer at their head office in Portsmouth. Learnt loads about the company, the products and what it's like working for a global corporation. The job was challenging and varied, and made good use of my university skills.

Very valued! The role I undertook on my placement year was not a role specifically tailored for a student it was a proper full time role. I was performing the same duties, and held to the same level of accountability as the other full time members of the team. I think this enhanced my colleagues perception of my value.

Management ware always very approachable, and happy to provide support and/or guidance as required. They were also keen to ensure that I was getting the most out of my placement year, and encouraging different projects to get involved with in order to develop as much as possible. I was also able to attend training course as required by the role.

Very busy! As the role involved dealing with customers either directly or via external sales managers there was a lot off work, and lots of pressure to do things well and in a short timescale. However this is realistic of the environment in which i was working, so not an unreasonable requirement.

Lots of responsibility. As the role was the same as a permanent role there was a lot of responsibility. Responsible for preparing technical proposals to customers, providing correct pricing and lead times across a wide range of products and negotiating acceptable levels of discount. I was the first point of contact for direct customers, distributors, and external sales managers.

While the technical level of the role was not too complex it provided an opportunity to apply technical skills I already had, but not so much develop new technical skills. However the other skills developed have proved invaluable both when back at university and into employment. commercial skills, interpersonal skills, communications skills, etc.

The general office atmosphere was really nice, overall it was a good environment to work in. Plenty of fun and chat going on, but not to much to stop the work getting done! Generally quite a young office too, so that was a bonus. Everybody was easy to talk to and generally happy to help.

General organisation was good right from the start. When I arrive they were expecting me and all my required equipment and access was either ready or quick and easy to set up. As my placement was treated just like a normal permanent job role there wasn't too much direction, or specific projects to deliver, but my daily work was clearly defined.

The company were generally happy to invest in my development and training. I attended various training courses and also had several site visits to customers and distributors. I was also often invited to meetings sometimes not really to contribute, but to gain experience. There could have been more clear targets or objectives for my placement year, but I didn't really drive for this.

Very appealing! I returned to university to finish my degree, then got a job back with Pall on their Operational Leadership Scheme. I worked two years on the scheme, and then got a job in a leadership role at one of their manufacturing plants. There's also a lot of opportunity for pure technical or commercial roles within the company.

Yes really good! Like i mentioned in one of the previous comments it was generally quite a young office, so lots of like minded people looking to socialise. Either playing sport, going out to eat/drink/party, there were lots of things to do with colleagues. Also most people tended to live close together which made socialising easy!

OK... it depends what you are used to. Portsmouth is about the middle of the road in terms of cost of living. It's not as expensive as London or Surrey, but more expensive than the North or the Midlands. Rent is relatively expensive, but food and drink is not too bad!

Nightlife is pretty good in Portsmouth, depending on which part of the city you go you can have everything really. There's nice old fashioned drinker's pubs, trendy bars, cheap restaurants, fancy restaurants, craft beer pubs, nightclubs (both 'commercial' and alternative), plus loads of music concerts and comedy or even the theater.

Yes! It's what you make of it of course, but there are opportunities to do pretty much whatever you want to outside of work, either with colleagues or without. Loads of different sports clubs to join (land sports or water sports), also there are a good presence of local members groups of technical institutions.