Recruitment Consultant Review

My placement was somewhat enjoyable with a mixture of highs and lows experience throughout the year. Overall I do feel that the experience has been positive towards my personal and professional development however it was a struggle at times dealing with the pressures of the job and expectations of me.

At times I did feel hugely valued by my colleagues, especially at the start of the placement I was particularly encouraged and rewarded when going above and beyond of my expectations. However as the year went on I did feel less and less appreciated and that at times I was taken for granted.

During my year I did feel valued by my line manager at the start, they were particularly supportive and helpful in anything I needed. However once my line manager had moved onwards, I did not feel supported by the higher manager and felt like I was not given help towards my job.

This is a tricky one as I felt like I was given more than what I expected in terms of responsibility. I did feel like I was extremely busy on a daily basis with a vast amount of tasks to be doing. Sometimes this was okay however sometimes I did feel severely burdened.

I did feel greatly responsible for a variety of tasks on my placement, I was given control of a desk which was running at around £1000 a week when I took over, by the end I had brought it up to £5000. This was due to the responsibility I was given.

I did feel that the training I was given by randstad was definatly worthwhile for the job that I was doing. It definatly helped by for the year and the job I was given. However it was specific to randstad and recruitment and not necessarily something that Is directly applicable to my studies.

Some of the time the atmosphere was fantastic. A feeling of unity and a theory of all of us in it together was apparent sometimes. However, more often than not the atmosphere was tense and it felt toxic. I felt that we were all tarnished with the same brush when the team was not doing well. I also felt that underperforming colleagues got away with a lot of things.

The set up of my placement year was very well ran to be honest. I did not feel like I was any different to the full time employees or that I was given special treatment, the training was good in order to get me up to speed with my other employees too.

Randstad definatly invested a lot of time and money into training for myself. I was sent to the head offices for two seperate training courses in order for training along with all my expenses paid for. I certainly did feel that I was being invested in to preform well at the job.

I would certainly not be seeking employment with randstad in the future. This is due to after leaving the firm I was sent an email saying I would not be receiving my bonus for my final month due to a variety of fabricated reasons. It was clear that when I left they did not care about the lasting legacy or work that I put in. I was also accused of some other things which were quite frankly ridiculas. Very petty of them- a large corporate firm- to out do a student of their bonus.

I got along very well with a few of my colleagues on my team and enjoyed a good social scene with them out of the office. I very much enjoyed working with them and seeing them. However the rest of the team I did not get along with and did not have a lot in common with.

The cost of living is somewhat normal in terms of national average. In Manchester basic living costs were normal however rent was expensive. I would not recommend living in the city centre though as it is very expensive to live in for the salary.

To be honest I did not sample much of the nightlife, however from what I did experience it was good and affordable.

There were oppertunities to get into outside of work with the company. For example they do have opportunities to represent the company at events for example at rugby matches. Also they did provide a good Christmas function.