Business Development Executive Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my head office placement at British Airways. I was placed in Heathrow Operations and therefore no day was the same as constant issues and situations affected my role. I was given significant responsibility and led a number of projects, which were important to the British Airways operation at Heathrow. Furthermore, as a group of placement students we had the opportunity to engage with a variety of charity work for Flying Start, the BA charity which works with Comic Relief. The pinnacle of this was a 100km hike in Italy.

I have made strong friendships with many of the people I worked with, and created a network which I believe I can now rely on during my future career. My colleagues gave me constructive feedback, and encouraged my learning and development of a wide range of transferable skills. I felt empowered to make decisions and take responsibility of projects and situations.

Through weekly 1-1s with my line manager I was given constant support and guidance. He was able to give me honest feedback and this helped me perform in my role. There was also 2 reviews with my graduate manager, who acts as a point of contact should anything not be going well within your placement. There is also a number of developmental 1-1s arranged throughout the year to discuss how the placement is going.

When I first begun the placement, I found fairly difficult to find much meaningful work. However, after a few weeks once my confidence had grown I soon picked up a number of projects. These ranged from technology used by our ground handlers to the entry into service of a new aircraft. Time management was key to balancing a variety of projects and ensuring you're work load wasn't too much.

I was able to take on a significant level of responsibility thanks to building a number of key relationships with senior leaders, becoming trusted to make decisions and lead conference calls. Furthermore with the re-organisation, a number of managers left leaving a significant work load to take over. This also enabled to take on further responsibility.

The skills developed on this placements will be transferable to any future career. I significantly developed organisation, time management and supplier management skills throughout my time, to name just a few.

My direct team was only 3/4 people, which meant the atmosphere in the office can be fairly quiet if colleagues are out and about. That being said, I made good friends with a number of other people at Heathrow and therefore if the office was quiet it was easy to find someone.

Despite not being able to chose your position before you begin the placement, there is a good number of quality roles available which are selected dependant on the need of the business area. The recruitment process was smooth, and the onboarding simple. Placements had their own induction week with talks from senior leaders about the business, team building exercises and a number of activities.

We had quarterly development days with our graduate manager, which were on topics selected by us. These included presentation delivery, influencing and a number of other topics. There is also an online training platform available to all where you can sign up to do online modules, as well as booking training courses in a complete variety of topics.

Following a successful placement we had the opportunity to be interviewed for a position of the Future Leaders Graduate Programme and I was successful as a result. You are assessed on your performance throughout the year and an interview at the end. The scheme presents further opportunity to gained a wider insight to other areas of the business.

Many of the placements on my cohort lived at home and therefore organising social events was difficult, as people didn't live near each other. We did however have a number of socials after work organised by ourselves. The graduate committee organise social also which placements are invited to attend and these happen every few months.

The cost of living and socialising was fairly high, given it's proximity to London.

In the areas around Heathrow, and the head office, there is very limited nightlife, apart from a couple of pubs and what is available at Terminal 5. For nightlife we had to go into London, which wasn't too difficult as you were able to get discounted tickets on the Heathrow Express.

There is a number of sports clubs, as well as opportunities to get involved with fundraising through Flying Start. The placements were able to run a number of events including a 5-a-side tournament and a 100km hike in Italy. There was often nights organised by the grad committee and flying start - these included Quiz nights, Film Nights as a few examples.