Campaign and Communications Intern Review

On a daily basis, my role involves supporting the UK Commercial and Public Sector team sellers, managers and Director. My tasks include sending out company emails having put them into our Commercial or Public Sector format and distributing them to the relevant people, hosting PowerPoint slides on team calls and taking the minutes for these calls, which I later summarise to distribute relevant actions to those involved. I also have the task of uploading to our team channels on Microsoft Teams, and making sure the channels and folders on her remain tidy and well kept.

Having spent a year at HPE, I can definitely see in myself how my skills have developed and I've grown as a person. My skills in Excel have improved drastically, and while I'm still not an expert, I now understand Pivot Tables and VLookups better than I did before. I've severely improved on my communication skills, be that with email, private messages or just via conference calls. The confidence I have in myself has improved so much from working in the professional environment, and I now feel far more at ease when it comes to presentation skills, be that with putting together the presentations to make them look good, or with actually physically presenting them.

I'd certainly say so. I have a great relationship with my manager, however for the first part of my placement especially she had a lot of roles outside of the team that I was working in, meaning there was an onus on me to work independently and get my tasks completed. Certain tasks in particular stand out as ones where I was given a lot of responsibility, for example hosting slides on important calls, taking meeting notes and tracking event attendance for both social events and enablement sessions.

HPE as a company are extremely supportive. Just speaking in general, every employee has access to the Employee Assistance Programme, which you can access any time you need for support of any kind. The intern program had a group of main leaders who we could always turn to for guidance, and one of those was allocated to us for quarterly 1:1 catchups, in order to help us progress and develop as we saw fit. They provided us with Development Days, which were sessions that allowed us to learn more about the business, work with other interns and generally just see how much our skills had improved from the start of the program.

Culture is a massively important thing for HPE. From the start, we were taught about HPE's mission and core beliefs. As a company, there is a massive onus on supporting their staff, giving them incentives, relevant bonuses and awarding us where we deserved. Every second friday of the month at HPE is Wellness Friday, which is a huge part of HPE culture. On one of these days, every staff member finishes at least three hours early, giving them the chance to spend their friday afternoon however they want.

I've had such a good time working at HPE. Everyone has been so welcoming, friendly and is always free to reach out and lend a hand when you're looking for one. I've been able to meet and work with so many amazing people from both the UK and the wider world. There have been so many opportunities for me to get involved, to meet people, to lead, to grow my skills and I'm so so glad that I've had the opportunity to work at HPE. If I could stay part time whilst I finish my final year of uni I really would.

Yes

Be yourself, and don't be afraid to do so. Know and practice the company culture and you'll be a standout applicant and employee of the company. Never be afraid to reach out to people for help. So many people offered to help me out when I met them, and there's honestly not one person I've met that I would be afraid to go to with any issues. Know your role, get comfortable with it and be prepared to have an amazing time!