Assistant Solution Developer Review

I really enjoyed my placement at ProspectSoft, I was able to perform a wide variety of tasks and was given the option to see what it was like to work in many roles such as talking to customers, support and development

Everyone at ProspectSoft is very friendly. In development we often had discussions on many different and varying topics and I was able to provide input and suggestions that were treated with as much value as from any other member of the team.

Whenever I required any help, I would simply have to ask and any support would be given as soon as someone was available.

On some days I would have a lot of work to do, and others not so much. There was generally a "perfect" amount to get on with and not sit idly, but not too much to overwhelm me and feel pressured with looming deadlines

I was given projects to do and left generally to myself to work on them. I still provided regular updates to the project manager or my supervisor, and did not feel as though I had been dumped with some work with no support as I could always ask for any help needed. You are treated as an "equal" not just an intern, and as such you are given as much responsibility as you can handle, knowing that there are always people on the team who can help out.

ProspectSoft provided us with a large amount of training, of specific help to me was the SQL as I had not encountered it much prior to my time at the company. By the end of my placement I was happily and confidently writing SQL on a near daily basis. I also feel that my programming skills have improved just due to the fact that I was programming all the time and learning on-the-job.

I worked in two different offices during my time in ProspectSoft, in the Client Services department and then in Development. I found both to be great working environments, people can chat and have a laugh but not to the extent that distracts from work or interferes with others. Everyone at ProspectSoft knows each other as it is a small company, which helps to add to the great atmosphere. Everyone at the company believes in ProspectSoft and pushes to make the company, the products and the atmosphere even better

I cannot think of a single time where anything was not well organised. We were given timetables for our first few weeks of training so we knew what would be going on, who would be training us, etc. After that we were taken to our departments who introduced us to the various processes and work practices. From that point on, we were just treated as regular employees and got on with our day to day jobs.

We had a whole months worth of training before we were even sat down in our departments to start our "jobs". ProspectSoft introduced us to the company, the products, key information that would help us with our day to day jobs and then our more job specific training such as programming, SQL, technical support etc. We had Appraisals with our managers where we could bring up any further training or skills that we would like to learn.

A large proportion of the company is made up of returned placements. If you do well on your placement year and show that you are the "right stuff" for ProspectSoft there is a high chance that you will be asked back. It is a great company and always striving to keep improving itself and as such would be a fantastic place to work

There were a large amount of social events; paintballing, football, theme parks, nights out, restaurants, BBQs, cinema, the list just goes on. People were often organising events, and there would frequently be emails sent around inviting people to the next event that was occurring

I lived in Oxford which is not a cheap area, however as there is a lot of student accommodation in the area it was not too expensive.

Although I did not attend that many nights out, from what I heard from others they enjoyed it!

Oxford has a high student population and as such, there would be large numbers of opportunities for activities outside of work