Summer Placement Analyst - Digital Product Assistant Review

I really enjoyed working for Centrica for the summer. I was placed in the British Gas Residential arm of the business as an Analyst, working as a Digital Product Assistant. This meant I got to deal with the customer-facing side of the business, which was a good match for my business ethos and I was glad that they picked up on that during the application process. The ten weeks flew past and it was a great opportunity to learn what working in the utilities industry is like and how varied it is.

I felt very valued by my colleagues. There is a hierarchical system in place at British Gas, as you would expect from a large company, but for the most part it did not matter which level you were working at as everyone was very friendly and willing to chat to you. My team were all very friendly and keen to help, and there was an emphasis on setting up chats with important members of your area in the first few weeks to learn more about their work, which everyone was happy to take part in.

My line managers were great at keeping in touch with me and helping when needed. I had a one-to-one with at least one of them each week, where we would go through the work that I had been doing, how I felt about it and where to progress from there. They were also both only an email away, so if I were "on my own" in the office and unable to do something without some advice, they were always willing to send a few emails and help me on my way.

Because I had several projects going on at once, in general I always had something that I could be getting on with. There were times at the end of the placement, however, when I did struggle to find much work to do, but this was to be expected as I was in my final week and it was just a case of finishing things off and handing it over to someone else.

I was surprised at how much responsibility I was given. As an intern, I did not expect that I would be coordinating an Ofgem project for my area within my first fortnight of working there! It gave me a great opportunity to improve my leadership skills, and gave me more confidence when presenting; I never thought I would be leading meetings when I started but now they're a piece of cake!

As an Analyst, I did expect my placement to be a bit more quantitative than it ended up being, so I didn't end up doing much that would directly benefit my degree (mathematics). However, the more general business skills (such as leadership, conflict management etc.) were far more useful and I think that they will benefit my future career.

The atmosphere was really quite friendly and relaxed. At times it could be quite quiet as a lot of my team would work from home at least one day a week, but on the whole it was certainly an enjoyable place to be.

Once the internship started, the placement was very well organised; we had events set up well in advance and we were given plenty of information about how the summer would progress. However, it was a bit less organised in the run up to starting; I only found out my placement location about two weeks before I started when we were promised that we would find out well before that. This was a bit inconvenient as I had to make sure that I could make travel arrangements to get there, and it was all a bit last minute.

The company provided us with an induction at the beginning of the placement, in order to allow us to get to know both the company and the other interns. They also ran a "Presenting with Impact" session which was really useful and enjoyable, educating us on how to present well using your body language and confidence. We all took part in a Development Day, which involved group tasks and workshops to help improve our business skills. They were also really good at providing feedback on things. Once we started we all received about 20 pages of feedback from our assessment centre, and at the end of the process we all received feedback on our final presentations, not only from a content point of view but also about how we presented.

They are good! At the end of the placement everyone presents in front of their peers about their summer, and along with your rating given to you by your line manager, the powers that be get together and decide who they will offer a graduate role for the following year.

Yes. Because Centrica provided us with free accommodation, there were about 25 of us all living in the same location, which meant that it was very easy to socialise with each other.

With Centrica's promise of free accommodation, the cost of the summer is decreased dramatically. Egham and Staines aren't the cheapest places in the world, but you are paid a decent salary so you certainly shouldn't get short of money.

I'm not a fan of clubbing so I don't know!

As part of the internship, we all took part in a charity challenge which involved us all raising as much money for charity as possible in teams. A lot of this took part outside work hours, so quite often there was something to do with that after work.