Human Resources Placement Student Review

I had a fantastic placement experience at Lubrizol; I was never made to feel like a student, from day one my department made me feel like one of the team. I was given a range of different opportunities to work on different aspects of HR with different members of the team within their specialisms.

I felt very valued by my colleagues, my opinions were welcomed and appreciated. I worked on real life projects with actually had impact on the business and I was often trusted to do this independently. My team created an excellent environment for a placement student, offering support with an open door policy for whatever I needed.

I had weekly one to ones with my manager where we discussed what I was working on, what was going on in the business and how I felt my placement was going. These sessions were really beneficial for my development and ensured I was coping with my workload and gaining insight into the areas of the business I wanted to.

My workload was largely project based, so each day my work load would vary. Some days I would barely be at my desk and some days I had spare time to catch up on everything. If ever I found myself without anything to do, I would quickly be found something else I could work on.

I had a lot of responsibility on my placement; I was responsible for the recruitment of the next cohort of students across the two sites. This was everything from meeting with Hiring Managers to understand their needs, creating marketing materials, right through to arranging assessment centres and managing the onboarding.

My placement experience will aid me at university when considering business problems or concepts in context. The placement allowed me to gain an insight to the workings of a global business, learning how people interact, which departments work together and how it all connects; this is invaluable experience for when applying/interviewing for graduate schemes.

The atmosphere in my office was really nice, friendly and welcoming. I was purposely seated in the admin office, with two other people, as this was like a central hub for the wider business if they had HR enquiries. There were always people coming in and out of the office which made it a really friendly and open environment and allowed me to meet people from all around the business.

Despite being the first placement student the HR had, there was a clear scheme and set of responsibilities from the beginning. As well as this, my manager would always ask me if there was anything else I was interested in and wanted to learn more about which I thought was fantastic for my development.

All systems and general training were provided for me, as well as company specific Ethics training. In addition to this, I took part in our companies global Culture training roll out with my team being a test group before it was rolled out to the UK. Finally, I spent time with the Talent Development specialist to understand my MBTI type, which is something that can allow you to understand your own preferences for personal development in the future.

Until recently, Lubrizol didn't offer any graduate specific opportunities, but are now developing a Graduate scheme which is appealing. In addition to this, Lubrizol do ask whether they can contact you in the future with any entry level positions they feel you may be suitable for, so there's always an opportunity.

Lubrizol have a sports and social club which anyone in the business can join which offered trips, events etc that a lot of the students attended. In addition to this, the students had a Facebook group and chat which we used to arrange nights out, going for food, to the cinema etc. The student social life is there if you want to get involved with it.

I lived at home whilst on my placement as I'm based locally, but Derby is a really low cost option for both nights out and living. As there is a large university in Derby, there are a lot of student accommodation options in the centre which is only around 20 minutes drive to the Lubrizol site.

Derby may not be somewhere you've heard of, but there are a lot of different options for nights out. There are a lot of food options, bars and a number of clubs depending on what you prefer. If you want something a bit bigger, Nottingham is accessible by bus for a night out and is only about 30 minutes away.

Lubrizol's Sports and Social club offer a range of activities outside of work. Whilst on my placement there were day trips to London, Liverpool and York as well as a weekend away for Munro bagging. There are also activities arranged such as go karting, fun runs and golfing. There is an opportunity to join the sports and social club if you have any events you'd like to organise.