FoB Fleet Sales intern Review

Being very interested in the automotive industry working at Ford was a joy. I learnt a great deal about the industry through the wide range of tasks and projects I completed at Ford.

Coming into the company as a placement student I was unsure how my ideas and opinions would be seen however from day one I felt valued and it was clear that my fresh perspective was appreciated.

Despite my manager having a very busy role he always made himself available to me if I required any help or advice. As well as support from my direct manager there were many other supervisors who I had interaction with who were also more than willing to provide me with guidance.

The first couple of weeks into the job was a bit of a blur with many introductions and inductions. Once I had settled in my workload started to grow with plenty of tasks and projects for me to get stuck into. My advice would be to offer help and assistance wherever possible, through doing this I ended up with work from many different people within the Fleet department as well as other departments. Throughout most of the year I had a reasonable workload although at times it did become difficult to deliver within the given time frames I believe this was valuable experience and I would not have ha it any other way.

My day to day role consisted of a large amount of project work some of which involved a lot of responsibility. Daily activities included releasing a daily sales tracker to the fleet team, reviewing and approving requests for new fleet customers as well as providing support to the department in any way that I could. The projects I was involved in included developing a excel spreadsheet to be used during Ford closed auctions to ensure consistent prices, assisting in creating a new used car website including a customer promise, creating sales reports for specific managers and creating a business control file for an internal audit. All of these projects required a great deal of work and with many of them crossing over each other at times I had a great deal of responsibility to deliver results.

I found my experience at Ford invaluable as it allowed me to apply some of the skills and knowledge I had learnt during my university studies. As well as this I also developed skills which I would not have been able to do in university especially business accumen

There was a great team atmosphere in the office which made it a pleasure to come into work. Although there was a fun atmosphere everyone knew there was a job to be done so when it mattered it was easy to get stuck in and get your work done.

From my understanding Ford has only been running the placement scheme for the last 3-4 years after a 10 year gap and considering this it was a very well organised scheme. Although there was clear direction when required I also found that I was able to carve my own path and I found that I got back what I put in.

At Ford there is a personal development scheme called EDAP which provides employees with £200 per year towards many different activities. I personally spent my allowance on the IAM (institute of advanced motorists) skills for life course as well as a motorcycle CBT (compulsory basic training). I cannot fault the scheme.

Although there is no guarantee that you will secure a graduate job back with Ford they do make it a lot easier for you after doing a placement. As you have get through the graduate assessment centre to secure the undergraduate placement job there is no requirement to do it again. Instead if Ford want to offer you a job all that is needed is a placing interview.

Although it is not a huge placement scheme (around 15) there is plenty of opportunities to socialise as most people relocate to the area so are all in the same situation.

Being near London it is by no means cheap however due to the good salary it is possible to enjoy a good social life.