Savills Valuation Internship Review

I was working in the Residential Valuations team. The section within the team I was working within worked on valuations for loan securities. This involved various banks approaching the team to value a property which one of the bank's clients wants to purchase. My day-to-day work involved completing reports on various properties. Sections in the reports involved a range of factors including; describing the property's location, acquiring the property's planning history and EPC rating, and primarily, discovering sales/rental comparisons for the property to determine our valuation price.

The main skill I learnt was the ability to discover comparable properties to help gather an idea of value for our subject property. This involved analysing the similarities and differences between various properties and having an opinion on what our subject property was worth compared to these other properties. Additionally, I enhanced my communication skills as a big part of the job involved calling various agents to help get their opinion on the local market and get a steer for their suggested value of our subject property.

I was given a lot of responsibility. At first, a big part of the internship was discovering comparable properties for various properties which other members of the team were working on. Once I had developed a decent understanding of this, I was given the opportunity to work on writing an entire report myself (with supervision). On top of this, I was given the opportunity to go on site visits to certain properties to get a more hand son approach.

I received a large amount of support and guidance. Everyone within the team were always willing and available to answer any questions that I had. Each intern was also provided a mentor during the course of the internship and my mentor provided a range of support and guidance. For example, before writing my own report, I asked if he could send me an old report to read through and ask a range of questions on any aspect of the report to help improve my understanding. He was more than happy to do this and sat with me for a while afterwards answering all of my questions in depth.

The environment was a very friendly, happy and hard working one. During the day, the team were always jokey and approachable. When it came to work, everyone in the team was helpful and understanding which created a great ease of working as it lowered stress level quite a bit throughout the day. Savills stood out as a company where everyone is approachable and friendly no matter whether that was a graduate or one of the head directors. After work there were a few times when the team would all go to the pub together as well which added a more personal connection with everyone rather than corporate feel all the time.

I thoroughly enjoyed the internship. I learnt a range of industry specific skills, as well as soft skills, such as how to work and interact with people in an office environment. I was always given work when I needed it which meant I was never bored during the internship. The company also put on Departmental Overview Zoom calls for all of the interns to help us learn more about other aspects to the business and the property industry as a whole which were very helpful and interesting.

Yes

In the application process, make sure you explain why Savills is important to you over another company. What makes Savills stand out for you? If offered an internship at the company, make sure you are not afraid to ask questions from anyone within your team or the company as a whole. It is your chance to learn as much as you can from the experience. Also, nobody expects you to know anything before coming in which means that everyone is understanding and would rather answer your questions than let you sit there confused.