Group Services Intern Review

My team are based around the UK; however the dynamics of the team allowed us all to have regular communications online. Everyone was really approachable, friendly and helpful. I was trusted with projects that directly impacted my team and was supported during these projects. The colleagues in my office also made this experience very enjoyable and comfortable. They helped me adjust to the working environment in the office.

My line manager has been a pleasure to work with. She has supported me so much in my development during this internship and really encouraged me to try out different things to broaden my experience. She has structured the internship with projects that allow me to get involved as much as I can with my team and also allowed me to do additional activities for my personal development.

I had projects my manager assigned me that I could work on independently which was something that took a fair few weeks to work on. Alongside this I have been given other opportunities to part-take in other tasks in different offices, shadowing other teams and working on projects organised for our internship programme.

Enough responsibility to know that it will contribute to the teams objectives and make a different in the way the team work. My team involved me with a project and gave me responsibility to independently be an owner of certain objectives and ensure these were done. We join the project midway, my objects were started on when I started my internship and I was able to see it through to the end.

Time management skills is a major skill which I believe has been developed over the 10 weeks. Meeting deadlines and managing other responsibilities have really enabled me to better manage my time. I was also able to practice my presentation skills by hosting a networking session which consisted of me planning, preparing and leading the session- useful skill for my studies and the future. Leadership and management skills were also developed as I was overlooking certain tasks and required delegating tasks and communicating with different stakeholders to ensure deadlines were reached.

When everyone is in the office the office is relatively lively. There's a nice balance of working and taking breaks by having conversations with your colleagues about non-related work stuff. Most days colleagues worked from home; however office was very relaxed and calm environment. It was not too intense - perfect environment to get stuff done.

My team set up my placement experience very well with regards to the different activities organised. There was always something to do. The HR team that organise the internships also organised a set structure of objectives which helped organise what we should aim to try and learn over the 10 weeks.

The internship is a paid internship which was a bonus.

There were a lot of restructures occurring in the organisation so the area that I was placed in was undergoing change and had not future employment prospect. However, the organisation have been in touch to undergo additional assessment for a referral on the graduate programme in another stream. The graduate programme seems like a great opportunity and definitely something that is appealing to me.

The office I was in colleagues all sit relatively near each other so very easy to engage in a daily conversation. Also during the internship, we partake in a charity challenge project with the other interns in the same region. Able to meet all the interns in the same office or nearby offices and work together with them to raise money for charity. Great way to make friends and also puts you in touch with interns in different streams to arrange shadowing days with.

Not expensive, lived at home so I did not require additional expenses. Lunch was quite expensive at my office; however, places nearby offered a good selection of food for varying prices. Transport cost to the office is quite expensive as public transport links are not necessarily nearby. Generally not too expensive.

The charity project allowed a wide range of opportunities outside of work to raise money. Great way to use the charity challenge to organise events and activities to raise money. There were also additional activities like volunteering at assessment centres that enabled a change in environment from the usual day job.