HR Placement Student Review

It was a fantastic placement that provided me with a wide variety of skills that I can take further in my career. It was challenging, rewarding and sometimes stressful but I gained considerable enjoyment from my experience.

I felt valued personally by my colleagues, everyone was very friendly and some were interested in my professional development and was always willing to help me. Professionally, our permanent colleagues were given more formal development within the team, such as company PDP's and objectives settings. This is something that placement students were not given the opportunity to complete or be evaluated against. Also, placement students were not allowed make as many adjustments to their work/life balance as permanent staff members, e.g. in working from home or adjustment of hours.

I was given tremendous support and guidance within the team and by my supervisors. I always felt I could ask any questions and approach them about any problems or worries that I was having.

I always felt that I was kept busy with interesting and meaningful tasks. Sometimes I felt it became too busy and that it would have been unchecked unless it was raised. However once it was I was given adequate support and enabled me to understanding the importance of honest conversations within the workplace.

I was given considerable responsibility that increased throughout my placement. This was challenging but extremely rewarding and I am very grateful for the experiences.

I was given no formal training except for a general 2 day induction course about the entire business, which I found very useful. My on the job learning was invaluable and my conversations and 1-2-1's with my managers and colleagues were extremely useful in developing my skills.

The office was always a friendly place. There were always people to go to lunch with or grab a drink with. There were many social activities and it was fantastic to feel so much part of a team. Sometimes when the team was under pressure you could see the stress in some colleagues, however this is completely normal within the work environment.

Even though the placement provided me with invaluable opportunities, there was not much structure around the placements themselves. We all had real jobs which was fantastic, but there were limited formal training opportunities or formal structures around mentoring, understanding the broader opportunities within the business or networking with others. That was really left up to the individual to pursue. I felt the placement students should have more opportunities to network within the business, and not just with other placement students.

There was no investment in training or development courses. It was all on the job coaching from my manager or colleagues. This on the job coaching was extremely valuable, but there was no investment from a company perspective other than the time taken by colleagues to manage and guide the placement students. There was also very little guidance in placement students future within the company and more often than not we were treated as temporary resource there to do necessary work rather than an investment for the future.

There are graduate schemes with fast track schemes in place, although you actually don't miss many stages of the selection process. There is very little guidance around future employment prospects and it is really left up to you to make valuable connections and networks that you can use for the potential of a future career within the organisation.

There was a very good social scene, and networking within the placement students team. There was a christmas and summer social and a committee in which you could be as involved as you wished.

Quite expensive, it is west London, but actually not within the city so those students looking to be living in the heart of London will be disappointed. You will have to get trains to central London which could be about 40 minutes away if living in the local area.

As above, the nightlife in the area was poor, however you were only 40 minutes away from London in which there are limitless (but expensive) opportunities to have a good time.

There were always informal opportunities within the placement student community. I am not sure about any opportunities that the company offered.