Performance and Reward Consultant (HR) Review

I had both an enjoyable and informative 10 weeks, it was great to understand the different areas of HR, I was given real responsibility and challenging tasks that I found really interesting and the weeks flew by!

I could not have asked for a higher level of encouragement and appreciation from both of my managers, they immediately made me feel comfortable and throughout the internship praised me and recognised my contributions. My team members were all extremely positive and welcoming, recognising the value I was providing and always giving useful feedback to help with my development.

There was a high level of support and guidance from both of my managers, weekly meetings to discuss my performance and workload kept me on track and enabled me to address any issues.

There was always something to do, I was given real responsibility which meant organising my time effectively in order to complete and monitor tasks. However, I was never too stressed or overly burdened as my manager kept an eye on my workload.

I was given high levels of responsibility and the chance to implement changes which made me feel truly valued and get a proper sense of working within the business. I was my manager's out of office contact when she went on holiday which was great as I could gain experience and a chance to proove myself, whilst never having too much of a burden as there was always someone available to help if I needed it.

This has probably been the most valuable experience of my education/career so far, it has given me the opportunity to experience reality of working life and apply University theory to a real life situation, it has given me a really clear picture of how I see my future now.

Everyone in my office was really friendly and from day 1 people took notice of me and made the effort to take me under their wing. There was always cake or sweets around for someone's birthday and always interesting conversations going on inbetween doing work.

Very well organised, from the day of applying for the internship until the day I left there was frequent emails so I always knew what was happening and what the next steps were.

I went to avariety of workshops and training sessions that I found very informative and useful, whilst colleagues were always teaching me new things, I was frequently being given constructive feedback that aided my development greatly in only 10 weeks.

The graduate programme looks great, I am aiming to achieve a place on this. I would love to work for Lloyds as it has such a great atmosphere, rewards and opportunities.

At Bristol where I was placed there was around 20 of us altogether that were placed in student halls (paid for by Lloyds), we walked to work together everyday, had lunch together at work and socialised in the evenings and weekends. Made some great friends over the 10 weeks!

Lloyds paid for the accommodation, the cost of food and socialising was very reasonable, a similar budgeting was required to that of Uni it was very comfortable.

The nightlife was fun, had many nights out over the 10 weeks, one of which was a company bar crawl with all of the Lloyds teams at Bristol that ended up at the 02 club in Bristol. There are some great clubs in Bristol, so much fun!

The main activities outside of work did involve bar crawls and meals out with members of the team, these were a great chance to get to know different people. You can also take part in a 'day to make a difference' which is a carity day in the community with the team.