Customer Insight Assistant Review

I find it very hard to think how much could have gone better., being constantly given opportunities to perform and push my development that bit further.

It took a while, but once I got settled into the job the team understood where my skills lied and would actively look for me to solve various problems that they themselves couldn't manage - which felt empowering for a placement student, something I didn't expect.

I had regular catch ups with my line manager and she always understood when work was getting on top of me and managed me well through out

Even to start with in my first three months I felt busy most days but no where near as busy as I did towards the end of my placement. Only a few times did I feel I had a little too much on, but very rarely and always just about manageable

Again, felt like quite a few pieces I had were very high level stakeholder pieces and had very little room for error. A lot of which I wasn't expecting but very pleased to have experienced

The skills I developed in my role in Insight didn't directly transfer over to university module, but the bigger picture of company operations and how it functions most definitely did.

A very welcoming and chatty team that I thoroughly enjoyed being part of and would work with every single one again.

I think the management of myself within the team was very good. However, external to my department and general scheme could have been done better, with days for all placement students to meet (called development days), there was not as good organisation in terms of what exactly we wanted out of the "development days".

I didn't have very much training despite being given the opportunity once, for it to then be pulled. The odd piece of software or system, but no direct investment.

The organisation is very appealing, but despite really enjoying my time in the insight department, I don't think I see it as a long term career prospect. Other areas within marketing did interest me a lot but it is very difficult for graduates to get into the company without coming through the grad scheme which isn't marketing orientated, more business wide.

I lived with 5 other placement student on the scheme which I enjoyed and did get along with a lot of the other students as well when we met up at work for lunch etc.

I paid very little rent while living in Reading (about 30 mins car journey to Bracknell in traffic) and by living in a house I shared the petrol money 5 ways with the others also travelling to the same offices.

It was good when I went, but expensive as we were only really out on non-student nights. It was quite rare for us to go out as a lot of us were away at weekends.

There was a lot, one of which I embraced the most was football which I played 5-a-side and 11-a-side once a week, with the opportunity to play at Reading F.Cs stadium which was a highlight! There were also various cricket events in the summer as a sponsorship deal had just started with the ECB, so I went to a few games free of charge.