Intern Review

The hours are quite long, but overall you're placed in a friendly, employee-development-focused environment. From my experience, it didn't matter if I was a 90 day intern, or high up in the company; everyone treated everyone else in the same friendly, wanting-to-get-to-know-you-better way.

I felt extremely valued by the company and my colleagues, the impression that I got was that the branch really needed me, and any successes I had were well praised; yet any shortfalls were discussed in a constructive, how-can-we-improve-this sort of way.

Enterprise has a promotional system that means that every employee starts at the bottom, and no-one is hired from outside the company, apart from entry level positions. This means that everyone is looking to develop, and Managers and Assistant Managers are looking to develop you too. Any mistakes that I made were handled in a professional way, with clear explanations why what I was doing was wrong, and how I could improve it. During the first few weeks, there wasn't very much time when I didn't have support/guidance available from management/supervisors, and towards the end of the internship I was given a bit more free reign, which I liked because my experience I'd gained allowed me to do so.

The business fluctuated on a day-to-day, hour-by-hour basis. Generally speaking, Monday/Tuesday mornings were very busy, and early afternoons on Wednesdays and Thursdays weren't particularly so. It was all dependent on the number of bookings you had that specific day.

Towards the end of the internship, there were points where I was the only one on the desk providing rentals to customers, with the managers trusting in me that I wouldn't rent a car to someone who didn't have the necessary documentation. If there was an issue however, they were always at the end of a phone to help.

I've definitely developed skills of sales, dealing with difficult situations, time management, how to acquire corporate leads, customer service and how to sell to industry. For my undergraduate degree (Economics) these skills are not necessarily needed, but for my masters/later life, these skills will become invaluable.

The other employees were generally fun to be around, and, because the size of the office was so small, you got to know everyone on a personal basis.

From day 1, it was immediately clear that this internship was well set up and thought out.

The business definitely invested a lot of time and effort into me, as they don't want people to intern for 3 months and never return to the business; they want to invest enough into you, that you don't want to leave.

I've got a job as Campus Brand Manager, as well as continuing on part time with my branch. In general, completing an internship will most likely lead onto a job, if you wanted one.

The social scene was good, with monthly area social events.

As a student in the area anyway, I knew this before my internship, but the costs of living and socialising are quite low; rent is around £70pw and socialising is some of the cheapest I've seen anywhere in the UK.

During term-time the nightlife is fantastic, as the students are back; outside of term time the nightlife isn't quite as good, simply because Southampton is a two-university city, when these students leave, it does leave rather a big nightlife-sized hole.

Opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work were definitely available, with a lot of them contributing to potential promotions.