Product Assistant Review

My placement year has been fantastic!! I have had so many amazing opportunities, such as travelling to Turkey and Mexico, as well as loving my role within the Product team.

My team was great, and I really felt that they valued me in terms of decisions and my opinions.

My manager was excellent, and gave me lots of opportunities to get involved in outside my day job throughout the year. She also really valued my opinion, encouraged me to make my own decisions, and we worked more as a partnership as opposed to manager-placement relationship.

The nature of my role meant there was always something to be getting on with, however, I like that and found in quieter periods I would become bored. There are often times within my role that required deadlines to be met on a daily basis, which was pressurized, but again enjoyable. My role really allowed me to develop some key time management skills, something that I will definitely benefit from next year back at uni!

I was given a lot of responsibily, as were all the other placements at TUI. We are all doing a real job, and there are others in your team in the same position as you, so ou don't just feel like you are doing a role that is made up to keep the placements busy. This meant I was trusted with so many crucial business decisions, which is something that I didn't expect to have on this level during a placement year.

So many great skills developed at TUI! By working in a commercial environment, your ability to think strategically and analyse the commercials in decisions naturally develops, and is something that will definitely help me in my future career. We were also all given good training, and attended development workshops over the year.

TUI has a great culture, and the atmosphere in the office is a really good balance- friendly and relaxed, yet hard working.

The placement scheme is really well organised and, as there aren't many placements at TUI (under 10), we all benefited from lots of support from the placement scheme mentors. As well as this, we all had regular placement meetings, where we would have different areas of the business to present to us, and we all involved in an exciting placement project.

I am really interested in applying for the grad scheme.

Socially, the placements had a great time! Given that there is a small number of us, we got to know each other really quickly, and did lots of social things after work, or on a weekend with each other.

Luton has the advantage of being very cheap compared to London, yet is still relatively close (about 30mins on a train) to the big city. Luton town isn't the best though, and although you may be tempted to live somewhere with really cheap rent, do consider the area of Luton that its in, as some areas are not nice at all. We went to St Albans and Harpenden a lot, which are really close (5 and 10mins on the train), and have lots of nice bars and restaurants.

Luton isn't the best for nightlife, but its what you make of it! Being a social group of placements, we have all had some great nights there and in the nearby clubs in the local area. Plus, a lot cheaper than London!

The commercial division is really social, and there are a few team nights out, as well other social occasions to attend.