Business Development Intern Review

I did not have the best time at Disney as my Manager was not really a "people person". Towards the end of my Internship I was given more vaired and interesting tasks so began to enjoy it more. My team was very small and communication was not always fluent which caused tension.

Very little thanks from my manager for the tasks I completed. The other person in my team would help me and give praise when I had helped him out with work.

My manager was very time pressured a lot of the time and so did not often have much time to talk about progress or the tasks I had completed. I set up 1-2-1 meetings once per month to try and combat this and made notes of the tasks I completed so that I had lots of add to the conversation. The negatives of everything I had done seemed to come more freely into the conversation than any praise or direction on how to improve.

This varied, I joined in the middle of the Budget so was given little to do as everyone was busy. This soon picked up and I found work to keep me occupied throughout the year. Others in my team would often given me something from their workload to fill my time.

Very little. The manager was in control of everything and wanted to keep tabs on everything that I did. I had to go to her with all the facts of a situation so that she could make the final call on projects.

I learnt so much in this year!! Learning how to deal with difficult managers and remaining strong is a life long skill that Im sure will come in useful in any organisation I work in in the future. The excel skills that I used on a daily basis will be invaluable to me, they enhance the quality of your work and enable you to work more efficiently.

There was a lot of change going on in the company but the overall team was very outoing and upbeat. They were all very supportive and offered support and advise when they could see I was having a tough day. We would often go for drinks and everyone was very friendly.

I was given extensive handover notes and a 1 week handover period with the previous intern. the scheme has been running at the company for many years so they are used to the change over and the new faces every year.

There were lots of courses available on the SAP system that we were allowed to go on if you took the initiative to sign up.

There is no graduate scheme available but they employ lots through agencies so signing up with them may be useful. There is re-structuring going on so not sure how many vacancies there will be in the immediate future but you can leave your details with HR and the will contact you if any vacancy comes up.

There are over 60 interns at the company who always meet and arrange social events. The intern social committee have a sharepoint site where they have discussion boards and future events. There is also a facebook group that you can join which is useful for finding housemates if you need to move into the area befor starting your placement.

The company is in London so relatively expensive. Most of the bars in the area did special deals n certain nights.

Not much in the area, need to go further afield to find more.

Disney VoluntEARS has many opportunities to work with GOSHCC and other local projects to raise money. They are also many clubs like squash, football and netball teams that you can play in and compete.