Junior Garment Technologist Review

I really enjoyed my 12 months at Matalan Head Office. All of my colleagues were very welcoming and made me feel at home straight away. The opportunity to work at Matalan has given me an excellent insight into the industry and how it works.

The team of people I worked with were really lovely and all very eager to help me when needed. My managers were supportive of both my progress within the job and with the university assignments that I was required to complete at the same time. As mentioned above, I was made to feel very welcome by my colleagues from the beginning. There were times when I did feel I could have been given more responsibility and a higher work load but I can understand why as a placement student I wasn't.

My manager was supportive and did give me guidance when I needed it. I would say most of my support and guidance came from other members of the team, who were not necessarily my supervisors but people who I worked closely with.

While it could be argued my day-to-day job was busy, the level of work I was required to complete in a day was nowhere near the amount expected of me when I was at University so I did often find myself a little board - particularly in the beginning months when I was still adjusting from being in the fast-paced environment of University. I would say, I was as busy as my colleagues though. It's just the environment was a lot slower and work loads a lot less than I was used too.

My responsibility was fairly low, which I can understand as I was only a placement student. My main role was to help anyone that needed it on that day, depending on their individual workloads. Meaning my work load and responsibility was very much dependent on the individual technologist and what was needed. Since returning to University and hearing about other student's placement experiences, I can say my level of responsibility was significantly lower than what fellow students had been given on their placements. Even for those who did the same job role as me.

Having since completed my final year at University, I can confirm that the skills that I developed while at Matalan were incredibly helpful and have stood me in good stead. While at Matalan, I attended several of their Learning and Development masterclasses which gave me a much wider overview of the industry, something which was particularly helpful in my degree. Furthermore, I think the biggest thing that I took from my time at Matalan was the disciple required to work full time while completing university assignments at the same time.

The atmosphere in the office was really lovely. It is a quite a small team so that atmosphere was quite quiet. The atmosphere wasn't as fast-paced as I was expecting and was very different to the atmosphere at University. The building itself is a lovely place to work and has a real family feel.

The placement was very well set up and the staff that looked after the placement students directly were very helpful and always checking in to see how we were. There was a good programme of masterclasses already arranged for us to attend which was a good way of getting to know the areas of the business better.

As mentioned, the Leaning and Development team allowed me to attend several Masterclasses which increased my progression significantly and were the skills learnt in these were probably the more significant for when I got back to university for my final year.

The future employment prospects within Matalan are very appealing and I would love to work with them again at some point in the future if the opportunity arrises.

I didn't really know the other placement students that well as I never worked with any of them during the day-to-day. I did see them occasionally when the group of students met up for a meeting, however I never socialised with them at all.

I lived at home so the cost of living isn't something I know about.

The office is on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Liverpool so there is no local nightlife. However it is not far into Liverpool City Centre.

Outside of work, I didn't attend any activities nor did I see many advertised. I did attend the Christmas Party.