Purchasing Placement Student Review

Working in purchasing, you act as a support function to the plant, as you are trying to help reduce your overall spend. There are lots of ways that this can be done, through working on internal methods to save money or direct negotiation with suppliers. Day to day is very different, but you will be exposed to different software like SAP, Excel, IPPRO, PAP just to name a few.

My excel skills have developed greatly. I have learnt how to use SAP which is very important. My communication skills have improved as you get good exposure of speaking to lots of different people

I was given certain small scale projects to manage. The main objective was to reduce spend on a certain business process. For example looking at certain suppliers and reviewing how you can reduce the spend. These projects were very fun and successful which make you feel as though you have positively impacted the business

At the beginning it was hard as I had no handover the previous student and only my manager to learn off but he was always very busy and couldn’t allocate time to help or train me. Once another colleague was hired I started to receive more guidance but more support in the first few months would’ve been appreciated

Some people are very nice and generous with your time. However others can be a bit selfish with their time and not always looking out for new students who often don’t know what’s going on

I enjoyed the placement because I was able to meet new people and gain good business experience. It’s also taught me good habits I can apply when I return to uni and I also have good experience and know what I’m looking for job wise once I graduate

Yes

Get involved as much as you can at the start when people don’t expect a lot of you as the further you get down the line you will have more skills and be able to make positive impacts for the company