Industrial Placement - Finance Review

Working at Vodafone was a great experience and I'm grateful that I chose to do a placement year and would recommend one to anyone! I applied for the Finance Industrial Placement and was placed in a team in the Paddington office. I had the pleasure of working in the office for the first 7 months of my placement before moving to permanently working from home due to the pandemic. Despite moving to online my placement experience remained fantastic and the company was great at ensuring we are kept informed and feel supported.

From the beginning of my placement I felt my opinions and inputs were valued by everyone I worked with. Despite having little professional experience before joining Vodafone, I was trusted to make decisions and provide my opinion and advice during projects I was involved in. As such a young member of the team I did not expect to receive this much trust from colleagues therefore at the start I found it difficult to voice my opinions. Due to Vodafone's inclusive culture I was encouraged to speak up and very quickly gained the confidence to do so, even during meetings with more senior members of staff.

During my time at Vodafone I had 2 different managers due to an organisational change within the team. Both managers worked very closely with me and supported my professional and personal growth inside the organisation. I had weekly meetings with them to discuss what I am currently working on, ask questions and advice but also for a general catch up. Both my managers were considerate of my personal career goals and aimed to accommodate me as much as they could in the projects they involved me in.

The first few weeks of my placement were relatively quiet as I was beginning to adjust to the new role, meeting everyone in the wider team and networking. During those initial weeks I did a lot of shadowing during meetings and calls to gain an understanding of what my role will involve. Soon after I was able to co-lead my first project to eventually undertake many more projects, leading a lot of them independently and simply asking for advice if needed. This very quickly filled up all of my work time however almost always I was able to complete all of my tasks during my normal working hours.

From very early on during my placement (following initial inductions and training) my role offered me a very hands on learning approach which I very much appreciated. A few weeks into placement I became involved in a project which I was co-leading with one of the more experienced members of the team, enabling me to gain ownership of tasks but have the constant support of a co-worked who also understood the depths of the project. This enabled me to quickly gain a lot of new skills!

My placement year experience has enabled me to figure out the type of environment I enjoy working in, type of role I could imagine myself in and which tasks I enjoy doing. Being exposed to a corporate working environment prior to graduating has also helped me understand more of my strengths and weaknesses, ones which I wouldn't necessarily notice outside of work. This will also help me to figure out which graduate roles and companies I feel I would do well in and aid my application process.

From the beginning of my placement I felt very included and comfortable to speak to anyone in my team. Every one at Vodafone is very friendly and always happy to help (well at least everyone I had the pleasure to work with). Besides this the company and my team were very good at organising socials for us to get together after work - this enabled me to get to know the casual side of the people in my team and helped me to make friends across the team :)

When I joined the Vodafone Industrial Placement scheme last year it was actually only the second year the scheme was running. Overall I had very positive experiences however there was room for improvement. I felt our HR Business partners could have been more engaged and our induction could have been longer (our induction lasted 1 day, compared to 1 week induction for the grads). Nevertheless I had a great experience and felt supported by my team throughout.

Vodafone offers Vodafone University services where you can take online courses to develop a particular skill or field of interest. During my weekly meetings with my manager we would frequently discuss courses or things I can look and do to prepare before starting a new project. During the year we also had a few workshops organised aimed at the placement year students to participate in. Unfortunately as Industrial Placement students we did not get free LinkedIn learning training therefore I feel like there's room for improvement within the training and development.

Everyone from the industrial placement scheme has the opportunity to be offered a place on the Vodafone graduate programme. Towards the end of the placement we were asked to do an end of year presentation in front of our managers and a member the future talent team and a HR business partner. Following this you received information on weather you received the offer to come back to Vodafone. Their graduate programme offers a competitive salary, rotations across different teams and I'm excited to return to the company once I complete my final year of studies!

Yes - we had a few events organised with fellow placement students including a Christmas connect event with interesting talks, quizzes and team building competitions, a workshop with Laughology and others. I was fortunate enough to be placed in a team with a lot of youth including grads, industrial placements and summer inters. This enabled us to get together outside the office so there were plenty opportunities to socialise and make friends with people from across the company and your team.

I was based in the Paddington office during my internship. This significantly increased my living costs as opposed to being based in Newbury (near Reading), which is where the office Vodafone office is in the UK. Despite this I was able to rent out a house with some other placement students and rent etc wasn't too expensive. Our salary was enough to cover outgoings so I was able to socialise and go out (despite London being a relatively expensive night out).

Being based in London provided the opportunity for great nightlife! Despite COVID interrupting me experiencing the London night life half way through placement, I had many fun nights out before - London really is the place to be when you're a student and it's a place where everyone can find something to suit their preferences!

Vodafone offered opportunities to get involved in volunteering and offers their employees a few extra paid days of leave to get involved with some volunteering opportunities!