Smarter Infrastructure Support Dispatcher Review

For my internship I was placed in a technical support team which was unexpected as it was not what I was led to believe through the interview process. Not having a huge amount of interest in technical products impacted my view of my placement year as I didn't enjoy the job role from the start and struggled to see the positives of spending a year working on technical issues when I'm doing a degree in management.

Joining my team initially was quite difficult, as I was one of the few interns who worked within a team of permanent hires. At the start of the year I found it difficult to communicate with my team and didnt really feel like a valued member. However, throughout the year things have improved and I fell more like an accepted member of the team.

I was given a lot of support by my managers, although it did feel like at times although there were opportunities to take it would have been viewed negatively to be doing extra activities frequently. Additionally, when I tried to change job roles I was told to wait and see how I liked it for a month, by which time it was impossible to change roles.

On a daily basis I'm very busy as I monitor queues with incoming problem records, which is quite a repetitive task.

My job role was integral to the functioning of the team, as I assigned work projects.

Most of the skills I have acquired this year are technical, which are not much use as I'm a business management student. Additionally, most of these skills are very company specific and would be difficult to transfer. However, general skills you learn whilst working such as communication and work load balancing have helped my professional development.

During my placement it was a time a large restructuring throughout the company, with some employees being made redundant, because of this I feel the atmosphere was more negative than perhaps it normally would have been.

The job role I went into was well established within the team, it was clear of the role and objectives I would meet. However, I felt because of this that it was quite constrained and there wasn't a wide variety of areas to experience and learn about.

We had employability modules focussing on CV and interview criteria as well as a careers academy event to tell us about possible grad roles within the company.

Although there are a lot of different job opportunities for graduates I feel the negative experience I have had as a placement student, being placed in a random tech job, has impacted how I view any future job prospects.

We had 38 interns at our base location with a good social scene. We frequently organised events and nights out :-)

Living just outside London was a big positive, our rent was a little cheaper and it was just half an hour to get into central.

Nightlife was pretty good as we are based near a uni, so there are a lot of clubs and it's a bit cheaper than central london.

There are a few extra clubs, although not many of us joined these. Most after work activities were organised by interns with day trips like going out to Thorpe park.