This review was submitted over 4 years ago, so some of the information it contains may no longer be relevant.
Rating
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The Role
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The Company
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The Culture
- 1. To what extent did you enjoy your work placement or internship?
- 2. To what extent did you feel valued by your colleagues?
- 3. To what extent were you given support and guidance by management/your supervisor(s)?
- 4. How busy were you on a daily basis?
- 5. How much responsibility were you given during your placement?
- 6. To what extent did/will the skills you developed, and training you received, assist you in your degree studies and beyond?
- 7. What was the general atmosphere in your office?
- 8. How well organised was the overall work placement or internship set up?
- 9. In terms of personal training and development, to what extent did the company or firm invest in you?
- 10. What were the perks on your work placement?
- 11. How appealing are future employment prospects within the organisation?
- 12. Was there a good social scene amongst any fellow placement students/colleagues?
- 13. What was the cost of living and socialising in the area you worked in?
- 14. What was the Nightlife like in the area you worked?
- 15. Were there many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work?
The Role
Really great scheme, treat you like a real employee therefore giving you real tasks that make a difference not useless intern tasks, have your own workstreams alongside full time employees with people there always ready to help. Constantly want to know what you want to get out of the year and tailor it to suit you and your interests
Learnt so much over the year to the point where I was asked for my input in many different projects and my answers were valued often giving independent tasks of which the results were taken and used wide spread through the business thus giving the feeling of being respected by your colleagues
Managers anyways ready to help and there constantly asking if you’re okay if you have enough workload if there’s tasks in particular you’d like to do to enhance your own weaknesses, work collaboratively as a team so there was always someone around who you could ask for help and were more than happy to support you
As any job there was stressful times where you had alot of work with tight deadlines and other times where you didn’t have much on but there was usually a good balance when the work load was quite there was always other tasks which did not have definitive deadlines which you could be getting on with so never a point where you sat around with nothing to do
You got what you put in if you tell your managers you want to do more and more tasks they will happliy let you however if you shy away from tasks they won’t trust you to be able to get things done so as long as you make it clear you want to be given a lot of workload and you can handle it you’ll get loads of independent tasks
Skills I learnt will directly help with my degree not just academically but the scheme allows you to get out of your comfort zone and try things you’ve never done before simply because you have no choice but once you’ve done it you realise how easy it was and how much you’ve grown as a person through doing these seemingly meaningless day to day tasks
The Company
Good day to day atmosphere everyone has there good and bad days so sometimes you’ll get really happy people to work with other times everyone just gets on with their own work silently only interacting if need be but never a hostile environment to work in always people around in wider team to lift spirits
Dependent on department you’re in some have had many students so know exactly how to train them up others are new to it so don’t know the correct balance yet but in general they figure it out and get better as the year goes on but many managers know what work they will get you to do before you start
There are many many different training courses you can go on it is just about finding the time and getting approved to go in the course realistically they’ll only expect you to go one 1 course due to the short duration of time your there and the cost associated to them but all courses are available to you if you choose to take them
Subsidised Canteen
Grad scheme is one of the best in the country the work life balance along with the salary is great you also have a guaranteed job at the end of the 2 years which takes he stuggle and hassle out of applying and interviewing for jobs and the company really values its grads
The Culture
All placement students are split into different teams so there is not really any interaction between any of the other placement students but only with your actual team so was very difficult to get to know other students unless you were working with them which was rare so the first few months of not knowing anyone can be tough
Based in Coventry which is only a 20 minute train ride to Birmingham city centre so the night life social life was great there and not too expensive all amenities were wast to access and good public transport around the place a lot of student accommodation in the area also so made finding accommodation quite easy and inexpensive
Short trip to Birmingham broad street where the nightlife is great with many diffident student offers so not too hard in the wallet there is always something going on so never a dull night also being at the heart of such a large city meant that going out at night was safe
Work start times were flexible with many starting at 7:30 which meant you had plenty of time in the afternoon / evening to go out and do other things such as take up new hobbies and sports as it is is in a fairly large city there was always plenty of things you get yourself involved in
Details
Placement (10 Months+)
Business Operations, Automotive Engineering
West Midlands
August 2018