Commercial and Marketing Intern Review

Assisting the Customer Strategy and Insight team, which sat in British Gas Energy, with their current projects. On a day to day basis, this included attending and contributing to meetings with other team members, often with external agencies too. I would usually conduct independent work, creating surveys for comms testing, or sorting through previous survey responses. I also had regular access to TGI databases, which I would use for attitudinal brand research. I was in contact with my manager most days, even though the internship was mainly remote.

The internship really helped me improve my data literacy. I had little to no experience of dealing with Excel before hand. With training in our induction week, and help from others in my team, I now feel more confident using pivot tables, and most functions. Over the 2 months I presented in various different situations - from informal, to my final placement presentation to 50+ people. Having not presented in over 3 years, this really polished some very rusty presenting skills

I would say I was given a reasonable amount of responsibility on my placement. I went from shadowing my manger to leading calls at the end of my placement. I felt well supported by my team and never felt like I was out of my depth with responsibility. However due to various changes within the business, there was a project which fizzled out and therefore perhaps didn't get as much responsibility as I might have done. I felt I could have coped with slightly more responsibility, but recognise I should have been more proactive in seeking this.

I received a lot of support both during the recruitment process and during the placement. My line manager contacted me before I started, and I also had graduate talent managers, and a grad buddy as points of contact too. I had weekly 1-1 meetings with my line manager where we discussed what I wanted to get out of the placement, what I was doing that week and any concerns I had. I consistently felt supported by my manager

Amongst interns, I thought the atmosphere was great - lively and social. Amongst my team, it was also really positive and accommodating and I always felt my idea were taken seriously. However, since COVID most people mainly work from home. This had its pros, but this meant that when I was in the office, the atmosphere was pretty flat. For an intern/new grad, I'm not sure the WOH environment is the best to learn from others more experienced in the business

I enjoyed learning about different parts of the business I wasn't aware even existed. Comms testing was really interesting to pic apart the language and I enjoyed sitting in on the subsequent focus groups. Doing attitudinal research was slightly more challenging but I enjoyed working with numerical data for the first time in a long time. The only thing I was slightly disappointed with was the WOH emphasis. Sometimes it was quites lonely, especially when its your first time working a corporate job.

Yes

Do your research about the energy sector beforehand. An understanding about the energy market and where Centrica sit in it is really valuable. Also try to understand how Centrica work and how may parts of the business there are, is a great help.