Industrial Placement - Human Resources Review

I have very much ejoyed my work placement at Cummins in Darlington, I think the experience will truly set me apart from other graduates in 2015. I have been given the opportunity and encouraged to improve my skills both hard and soft in the workplace.

My colleagues have given me a range of value added work that I have felt has lent itself to helping me to develop my skills set as well as contributing to the business. We have frequent meetings with the senior leadership team to discuss our progress and despite the Company being such a big organisation I feel that I am valued very much by this group as well as a contributing member of the team in which I work on a daily basis.

The Student Development Programme in place at Cummins ensures that students have regular meetings and 1:1's with their managers over the course of the year. In these meetings I have been encouraged to speak up about the projects I would like to be involved in.

There are some times in the year where I have been very busy and worked long hours - however this has been due my own motivation to get a job done to a high standard, there has never been a time where I have felt pressured by my manager to work long hours. The company use 'flex time' which means that in quieter periods I was able to take back time that I had accrued during weeks where I had been busier.

I feel that given I was in my placement year I was given the right amount of responsibility and was given roles to lead that challenged me but not to the point where I felt incapable of managing them. For example, I was given the responsibility

During the year we took part in modules to develop our 'soft skills' these were: Conflict Management, Time Management, Meeting Ettiquette, Confidence Building, Presentation Skills. These helped us to develop skills that may have not been utilised during our time at university as well as being given practical opportunities to use these learned skills. I felt that in my placement I could have been given more opportunities to attend courses that were more specifically related to my job role, however, I understand that these accredited courses are often completed post degree and in many cases this is not possible.

My team and I got on very well inside the office, outside of the office we didn't do too much together as a team which I thought was a shame however, because I had such a good relationship with the other 20 or so placement students on site this didn't hinder my placement experience. On site overall I know that there are lots of opportunities to get involved with activities outside of work, football teams, a gym etc. There is also a Sports and Social club on site which runs months acitivities for its members (less than 50p to be a member each month!) they organise trips away to York Races, Flamingo land and various shopping trips!

There is a very well structured dtudent development programme on site - this gave the student group opportunities to work together and share experiences. The work required for the programme aimed to provide consistency in quality across all of the placements on site regardless on department, manager, etc.

There has been a lot of time and money invested in my development and I have been very grateful for this. Cummins truly do see the value in the long term of creating a positive experience for their placement students and that hopefully they will want to return as graduates. You wont be making tea and coffee!

I have really enjoyed my placement at Cummins, however, I hope to persue other opportunities in the future. My placement has taught me that gaining a wide range of skills and experience through working for various companies in different industries/sectors and of different sizes will help me eventually to be a fantastic asset to the company I work for. Who knows, I might return to Cummins in a few years to come!

I was really lucky to be with a fantastic bunch of placement students - there was something to do every night and because living in the North East is so much cheaper we could afford to!

Very cheap. There are lots of nice independent restaurants and bars in Darlington. Parmos @ £4 (if you don't know what a parmo is I would put it high up on your agenda of 'things to try in the North East')

Darlington has a couple of clubs - (the notorious Inside Out!) its no big city but nearby is York, Durham and Newcastle which aren't too expensive between a few people.

There are lots of things to get involved outside of work.