Customer & Partner Experience Analyst Review

There was never a dull day at Microsoft. Pretty much every week there was an internal product lunch, charity work and cake sales, festive celebrations and even Microsoft's very own festival.

They treated me exactly the same as any other employee, they always asks for my opinion and have me lots of responsibilities.

I had an amazing manager. I met with her bi-weekly to discuss my progress and commitments. She would always make sure I fully understood any project I was given. She also helped me to explore my other areas of interest that were not part of my job role.

I often had a lot of work on and I had to put in quite a lot of extra hours to get it all done. But I really felt that over the year this really helped me with time management and setting my own deadlines.

I was always given lots of responsibility and I felt valued. However my team would always make sure that I was comfortable with the project at hand before giving me a big responsibility.

I now have a lot better time management. I also have a better and more efficient work style for my final year of studies. I can also reflate a lot more of my course to the real world of work.

The office is open plan, every deak is a 'hot desk' Which allows for you to communicate easily not only with your team but with other teams too. There were lots of launches and socials too. There was also a great intern community and we would often meet up for lunch.

My placement year was externally well organised. HR always new what we were up to and helped to make sure that we made all of our annual commitments. The staffing team also organised great talks and networking events throughout the year. They also set up a really useful mentoring scheme.

When I first joined the company I was given an induction week helping me to understand the business overview, a history of the company and the company values. After my induction week I was then given a three week handover from the previous intern. I was then given continuous on the job training throughout the year.

The graduate scheme is very competitive and there are very few roles in marketing. So getting through to this stage up against other valid candidates will be tough.

The interns often met for lunch, we also had a welcome day, induction week and mid year event and end of year event with all of the 110 interns, which was organised by HR. there was also an intern team that organised quarterly socials with other interns in Reading.

Reading was a student town so during the week you could get good student deals. On the weekend however, it was slightly more expensive.

There are lots of bar, clubs, cinemas and restaurants in Reading as well as the university students union which you can attend with an NUS. Although there are not as many clubs as the big cities there is definitely enough to keep you entertained.

Endless opportunities were offered to me outside of my day job. Such as getting involved in extra projects, intern teams, charity work, internal careers fairs , sports clubs...