Building Consultancy Intern Review

I found my internship with CBRE was an extremely valuable experience, and very glad I got the opportunity to take part in it. The employees were extremely friendly, and encouraged me to to take full advantage of the internship by gaining experience in multiple disciplines and ask as many questions as possible.

I found during my internship I was given a reasonable amount of responsibility, and the work I was doing was valued by my employees. Obviously everything I completed had to be double checked, but this helped me learn and get feedback if I had made any mistakes. By the end of my internship I was able to complete multiple forms of documentation on excel without much help.

I thought all employees were very helpful during my internship, and most reached out to me expressing that they were free to chat at any time. The building consultancy department, the team which I was a part of were particularly helpful answering any questions I had on work I was carrying out, or on the graduate scheme.

Day to day workloads varied as some days I would be busy with work from 9-5, and others the employees didn't have much to give me. Fortunately during the internship we had been given talks on presentation skills, and also given a presentation to prepare for the closing day. This meant any free time I had I spent was spent researching on our given topic, or listening into skills meetings given in the London office.

I thought that I was given a reasonable amount of responsibility, and the tasks I was given to complete were relevant and helpful to my department. I was also invited along to multiple meetings, and was trusted to keep the information discussed confidential. Overall I believe amount of responsibility I was given was normal for an intern.

I thought that during my internship I developed a combination of technical and interpersonal skills, which will be extremely valuable to take back into my final year of university and beyond. Skills I have learnt at university were developed and applied to real life situations, while the end of internship presentation helped me improve my public speaking skills.

I thought the office I worked in had a good atmosphere as it was open plan and followed a 'hot desking' protocol. This meant that although I was sitting within my department each day, I wasn't always sitting next to the same people so was a great way of meeting everyone.

I thought the next generation team did a great job of organising my internship and ensuring everything ran smoothly. For example the talks we had throughout the internship were all were well organised with email reminders were sent out for each. The travel and accommodation for my induction day in London was also all taken care of by the next gen team.

CBRE did a great job of not just developing skills specific to your department, but also developing other skills important to all areas of business such as public speaking and presenting. I enjoyed the challenge of the end of internship presentation, and being in a group also allowed me to interact with other interns in the London office.

I think CBRE are extremely appealing to work for as they are the largest commercial real estate firm in the world with international opportunities. The graduate program also seems to be well structured with a lot of investment in training and development. I am also very keen to gain my APC, and CBRE employees are not only trained by the RICS but have a 97% success rate at passing first time.

The social scene among employees was good and on more than one occasion I was invited out for lunch or coffee. This was a great way to get to know people, and also discuss their role in the company an d how they got there. Unfortunately in my office I was the only intern, compared to London where there was over 10 interns.

Although rent in Edinburgh during the month of August was quite expensive, other aspects such as travel and eating out were relatively inexpensive, especially in comparison to London. I got a months bus pass which cost under £50, and with the offices being located in the city centre there were a number of cheap food places nearby.

Edinburgh is a great city for nightlife, and within a 5 minute walk of the office there were a number of cocktail bars open late and nightclubs. I'm sure for anyone new to Edinburgh it would not take them long to familiarise themselves with the good places to go to socialise.

During my internship there was a building consultancy department night out which was great to get to know employees outside of a professional working environment. Although this was the only event during placement, graduates informed me events like this are organised throughout the year and can involve a number of different activities.