Graduate Trainee Review

An extremely pleasant place to work, very different from other companies I've been in and obviously university.

It took a few weeks to discover the appropriate balance between work and interaction with colleagues, who were very welcoming but quite quiet at first.

I never felt stranded - in spite of the number of meetings my supervisor had, there was always someone on hand if I needed assistance.

The work pace was more sporadic than I'm used to. A lot of my work was collating past issues, which requires contacting others and asking for information. With such a rapidly expanding company, everyone has a lot on their plate and on more than one occasion a lack of response would leave me with nothing to do for a day or two. Then there are the days when everyone replies immediately and suddenly there's a huge pile of work. You learn to average out the pace, particularly if you suspect a new request will be slow to garner any response.

Officially, I was very much at the bottom of the pile, but my required researching cars across the whole company which lends itself to a more independent style of work. Consequently I had a regular review process and tasks to perform, but was given plenty of independence in my methods.

Work-flow management is going to be a useful one for my remaining years at uni, and obviously the interpersonal skills can only be a good thing. However, I can't tell whether having to learn the deepest, darkest secrets of MS Excel was a valuable exercise and most of the other training was very company-specific.

The people were fun, but very driven - I guess it was a nice balance between a working environment and a mad-house.

Admittedly I got my 4th preference for area of the business, no desk, no computer / laptop for several weeks and couldn't get into the building for the first couple of days... But "hotdesking" as it's called is common at the moment - my department only just moved to the new site and resources are scarce, particularly since the company is growing so rapidly, and everyone was very sympathetic. Core aspects of the internship program like training and issuing materials etc. were very well organised.

Whilst there are opportunities to take licences to hire vehicles, you have to be over 21. There are plenty of training programs, but they don't cover personal training / development, and most of the skills I learnt were low technical skills like Excel.

A comfortable, easy job in a pleasant environment. But lacks the excitement that some people (myself included) would look for straight out of uni. Other departments can be a little more exciting, from what I hear, but I wouldn't want to work there until I wanted to settle down.

Some of the interns went out most Friday nights in Coventry (except the week before the first paycheck). Socialising at the workplace seemed to be pretty unusual.

This is half way towards the North, and the accommodation and drinks are manageable. Remuneration from the company is more than sufficient to enjoy yourself too. Not that I had much desire to - the hours are quite long and the mornings are early.

Hey don't ask me - I have no idea! My friends say it's pretty fun though.

Almost nothing, from what I saw. I believe there is a football tournament between various sites, but it is not advertised to undergraduates. The only other thing to do is to try to get rides in the cars, but since this generally has to be done under the pretence of work it doesn't count as an opportunity outside of work.