Early Diversity Internship Programme Review

I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was an absolutely great week. It gave such a broad insight into the civil service in just one week from presentations to networking lunches to shadowing opportunities and even mentors.

I felt very valued as I felt they really took their time to develop a great programme throughout the week and everyone was so open to answering questions and just networking.

The EDIP team were always there for support should we have any queries and they were extremely accommodating to our needs. We were also assigned mentors that we developed relationships with so we were able to go to them for support/guidance too

I developed my networking skills, I developed relationship with people even my mentors who i feel will definitely assist me when its my time to apply for their graduate programme and we also gained more knowledge about their selection processes and assessment centres, information which was invaluable.

It was extremely well structured we were given a programme for the week and who our mentors were and other information a week before we arrived and everything went according to plan.

Great atmosphere all the people were great, friendly and willing to help

They invested a lot of time in talking to us giving us presentation and Q&A sessions with current fast streamers/graduates which gave us more of a direct insight into the civil service not to mention the networking which built up our confidence and communication skills

Aside for the Q&A from the graduates, we had senior members of staff talk to us about their day to day roles as well as shadowing our mentors to get first hand insight into the projects that they were working on.

It helped me really understand how much the public were at the forefront of everything they did and how hard and how much work they did in doing so. Everyone had nothing but positive things to say about the job and everyone seemed to share the common ethos

Very. For me, i wanted to see what the workload and responsibility was like for the fast streamers firsthand as well as what kinds of projects they got to work on to evaluate my skill set to see where I would fit in with the firm, whether we share a common ethos amongst other things and I did so i have no complaints.

i was reimbursed travel and lunch expenses where necessary

Yes, plenty of opportunities, presentations, Q&A, networking sessions, shadowing opportunities and our mentors also arranged for us to see different parts of the business and other employees they had worked with across Whitehall

They were good, easy to talk to the members of staff and all were willing to give us their contact information for any future queries.

Not so much

Yes definitely, this was only the first year of the EDIP running but I would definitely recommend it. its extremely insightful and really makes you respect the work that civil servants do as they are often overlooked. There is a role there for everyone which is important as I often feel like the public sector companies are often sidelined for the private sector.