Business Management Support / Software Development Review

Having originally applied for a completely different role than I ended up doing, Atos made every effort to give me as much experience in other areas as possible, especially those that I was originally going to be undertaking. I only gave this question a 9/10 as although I thoroughly enjoyed the role I did, I would have liked a little more exposure to the area that I initially wanted to work in.

I worked directly with a team of 6 senior management for the full 12 month placement, and was always made to feel like an important part of the team. I was included in 3 different management social events over the year, and received a leaving gift as a thank you for the work that I did over the 12 months.

As previously mentioned, I was working directly with a full team of management, this meant that whenever I needed support or guidance, there was always someone who could make time to help.

I always had plenty of work to be doing, especially after around 6 months when I was fully settled in to my main role, and I was then working on multiple projects.

"I was running the show!" is probably a bit of an exaggeration, but I was given a lot more responsibility than I ever imagined I would during an internship. The main role that I did was putting me in a management support role, therefore performing low level management tasks and even managing employees who were a much higher level than me.

My role was mainly business management based, therefore I didn't learn as much technical knowledge that would have aided more in the final year of my degree. However, the business skills, and people management skills that I learnt will be massively beneficial in any working career, not just in the profession that I will be pursuing.

The office I was based at for the majority of my placement was one of the smaller offices in the company, and therefore social life was a little diminished compared to the larger offices. That being said, I often went out for lunch with a few of my colleagues, and also attended leaving parties and Christmas socials etc. I spent a lot of time in 3 or 4 of the other offices, and found that the bigger and more populated offices had a lot more going on on a daily basis.

Being a big company, the recruitment process was handled by both Atos itself, as well as an external recruitment company. I found that while dealing directly with Atos staff, the recruitment experience was absolutely fine, however while dealing with the recruitment agency, it could take a long time to find out any kind of information or answers to questions. This score should not reflect badly upon Atos in any way, but if you need answers to an important question I would recommend trying to speak directly with an Atos contact.

Atos has a huge library of online training programmes in both soft skills and highly technical skills. I was given the opportunity to create a training plan, and was always given the time to do whatever training courses I wanted, as long as they were related to my current roles, or further university studies. I was also given a lot of one-to-one time for personal advice and guidance from some of the most senior members of the company.

However not yet 100% confirmed, I am most likely going to be receiving an employment contract to return to Atos on a graduate scheme in Summer 2013, and I am told that it will be confirmed as soon as some minor formalities are sorted out within the company.

The majority of placement students were based in the London office, and I was based almost 3 hours north of London in a town called Darlington. This meant that it was difficult for me to attend all of the social events put on for interns in London, however there were plenty of opportunities.

I found the North-East of England to be very reasonably priced in both accommodation and food expenses, so much so that I will definitely consider moving up there after graduating!

Darlington itself is only a small-ish town, however the nightlife was really pretty good for a small place. You also have Durham and Middlesborough close by, however I didn't venture that far so couldn't comment on the nightlife!

Darlington was a fairly young office, to the point where a good handful of employees were actually younger than me (I am a "mature" student of 24 turning 25 during my final year), and as long as you get involved during office hours, i.e. introduce yourself and be sociable, you will be invited to join in plenty of nights out and football matches etc.