Intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my internship experience. From day one in the London HQ, to the end of my 6-weeks in Leeds, I felt like a valued and important member of the organisation. The people I worked with were friendly, helpful and fun and I enjoyed my experience as a result.

I felt genuinely valued by my colleagues in the Development and Planning team at Cushman & Wakefield. I was given genuine responsibility and allowed to meet with a range of clients across various projects. I saw work that I had done being used in final reports and presentations to clients, this made me feel very valued. I was also meant to spend 3-weeks (half my internship) with the Valuation team in Leeds, however they were not very busy or did not have a great deal of work for me. As a result I spent only a few days with them as my contribution was not valued.

I was given lots of support and guidance by my line manager when it was necessary. I believe my manager struck a good balance between being helpful and giving me space to work things out by myself. The graduate in my team was very helpful for less significant questions I had.

Towards the start of my internship I was quite busy, assisting with large projects and with multiple tasks. Towards the end of my internship my workload decreased.

I was given quite a bit of responsibility by some member of my team, but this varied depending on who was leading the project. Some of my senior colleagues simply wanted me to shadow and watch them, whilst some gave me genuine responsibility to speak with clients and potential customers.

The skills and experience will be very useful as a pursue a career in the property industry going forward, something which the internship confirmed I want to do.

The atmosphere was very friendly and welcoming. Most people in the office knew each other, their was a good social atmosphere amongst the younger workers and this was something I was able to get involved with and enjoyed.

I would say the internship was organised very well. The first day involved an induction in London with all the interns across all UK offices, this was a great way to learn about the company and meet a range of people. I have some contact with the HR team who had arranged the internship and was asked to set 3 specific goals to help me maximise what I learned from the experience, this is something I found helpful. There could have bee more social or networking activities arranged for regional interns.

The company were helpful when explaining the contexts of projects we were working on. They were not able to offer me a great deal of personal training due to the short term nature of my internship and the fact I did not have a licence to use much of the software or computer programmes which required training.

Future employment with the organisation is extremely appealing. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience, met and worked with some great people and gained a very positive perspective of the company. I feel the organisational structure is appealing to my personality and they are also well placed to perform well economically.

I was the only intern within my office which obviously limited my ability to socialise with people in the same role, however their was a good social scene amongst the graduates which I was able to get involved with. This was good fun and also a good way to learn from them about the industry and company

I lived from home so incurred few living costs. The cost of socialising was just about manageable, but given the small internship salary, commuting and socialising left little money for additional activities.

The nightlife is excellent in Leeds.

Not particularly.