As I have been talking to our Year in Business students out
on placement I am delighted to hear their positive comments about undertaking a
placement year. Some of their comments are shared below and will hopefully
inspire those still seeking a placement. We know how hard it can be for 2ndyear students to secure a placement: they typically face the same recruitment
process they would as if applying for a Graduate job. It can be tough to face
rejections and in some cases to not even hear back from Companies they have
applied for. However what we hear from our YIBs currently out on placement that
the experience is such a valuable one that they would definitely recommend
students persist! The students also share what they believe to be the main benefits of doing a placement year.
Andrea Totaro is currently doing his placement year at SAP
working in the Office of the COO. Andrea says of a placement year:
“ I think Year in
Business is the best thing you can do at University for 3 reasons:
- It gives you business awareness and understanding
- It can help you secure a Graduate job if you give your best during your placement year
- It helps you to grow as a person – after 6 months in SAP I am a completely different person: I’ve gained confidence and I’ve learnt more about the business “
Shamini Mustoe is currently doing her placement year at
Xerox working in the Sales Operations Excellence department. Shamini says:
“I would definitely recommend Year in
Business as it puts you above everyone else. It puts your life into context –
this is where you want to go in the future and this is what to expect when you
leave University. It is really good to get the grasp of this early on”
Read more about Shamini’s placement here: http://yearinbusiness.blogspot.com/2019/01/shamini-mustoes-placement-at-xerox-tips.html
Amin Fataliev who is doing his placement
in Logistics at BMW Mini said he would definitely recommend a Year in Business
as “ It is a very good opportunity to
gain skills and understand which type of area, which type of industry you would
want to work in the future”
Former YIB student Hippolyte Petit who did a Digital
Marketing placement at The Walt Disney Company and then went on to secure a
Graduate job at Sprinkl, said of his placement:
“This YIB programme has opened up amazing opportunities; I’ve learnt so
much at The Walt Disney Company in a year- there hasn’t been a day when I
haven’t learnt something new. At the end of this year I got an awesome
opportunity to spend a summer in New York doing a summer internship with a company called Sprinkl helping out brands such
as Nike, Amazon, Uber and optimising their social media strategy.”
Listen to Hippolyte’s video profile here: http://yibprofile.blogspot.com/2016/10/hippolyte-petit-walt-disney-co.html
The main benefits from a placement year (as shared by former YIBs)
1. Developing a good understanding of Business, how companies operate and which areas you may
want to go into
Rajan is doing
his placement with Deloitte and says “ The level of exposure to the working world
and corporate know how – when you look at theories and lectures you don’t have
an idea of internal logistics, the work which exists… hard for students to
understand the sheer amount of work which goes on between businesses”
Gabi did her placement
at IBM and said the best part was “ working
out which part of the business I want to go into and which I don’t want to..”
2 Developing
many new skills
Loulwa is doing
her placement at PiXL and says “The
amount of things I have learnt it’s scary how much you can learn in such a short
period of time: it’s a very fast paced environment: we are very small , our
output is huge and so we have to do a lot of things and that is how we learn”
Hippolyte did his
Digital Marketing placement at The Walt Disney company and described “ the biggest movie release was Star Wars..
huge film to work on and I’ve learnt a lot in terms of social media marketing.
I’ve worked in this big team of super talented individuals with their own
skills in different digital areas, all willing to help and make sure I was
learning every day and able to participate in any project and contribute”
3 Opportunity
to work with fantastic, experienced teams
Andrea who is
doing his placement at SAP says: “ The
best things about the placement is my team; they are absolutely amazing. They
are so supportive and have also helped me to build his vision board , not only
for this year but for the future – they are really helpful to support these
goals; thanks to them and the trust they gave me in my projects helped me to
receive an award as one of the best interns out of 50”
Nataliya who did her placement at
IBM said “Even though it is a large company,
interns can easily communicate with their Senior managers and global leaders –
there is no strict sub division so everyone collaborates together to work on a
project”
Victoria who did her placement at Winser London said : “Because it
is a small company I can put in my ideas and they listen to them,.. all my
ideas for social media they have been taken on board and I am able to action
them.. eg the plans and the blogger event idea I came up with .Everyone at the company
is so nice; I enjoy going to work every day”
4
The
responsibility you are given for projects
Alice is doing
her placement at Unilever and says “ the
best thing about the placement is the amount of independence I have ; I am
given a task and given the opportunity to make it my own, though at the same
time I always have the support of my team”
Gemma did her placement at Valspar said “ one of my main projects is for a Conference in November for 3,000 people
and so there is a lot to organise: each week I hold a meeting with updates with
the whole of the office and issue out roles and responsibilities which is quite
a lot of responsibility but is nice. I am treated as a full time employee. I
have the same responsibilities and same expectations which is really nice, I am
not giving rubbish jobs – I am working properly like everyone else”
Jack did his placement at
Volkswagon and said “You get great exposure
to everything; I was sitting outside the Managing Directors of the UK so you
can see really high up people; I can ask questions of the Head of Department”
5 The
opportunity to work cross department or get involved in broadening projects:
Olivia did her placement at Grant Thornton and
said she “enjoyed going to the different clients and within her department seeing
different parts of the business, HR, Operations, Accounting and getting to meet
a lot of high up people”
In some companies
there is the opportunity to do part of the placement in another department. In
GE Zack says “At GE for 30% of placement
you can do something else.. eg even if you are doing Finance if you are
interested in Marketing you can be allocated to a marketing person to get some
experience in that area”
6 The chance
to establish a fantastic network with other interns (in many Placement
companies)
Shamini talks about the “Network : there are about 30 different students coming from all over the UK and we bonded really closely – we are all in the same boat, not knowing anyone.. we do social activities and meet outside of work and when you go to lunch you have people to speak to and see the business from their point of view”
Jordan did his placement at VMWare and
talked about “ the culture: they are very eager to get interns involved in as much as
possible, getting 20 interns involved in the Million maker scheme which was seen as great
bonding thing for interns – working with Princes Trust to raise £10,000 by end
of December”
7 Better
understanding of Management theory to help final year studies.
Rosie did her marketing
placement at Vercida and said “It helped
me understand some of the material I learnt in my 1st and 2nd
year – perhaps I previously took at face value but now I can see how some of the
things can be implemented in an Organisation so that when I go into my Final
year I will have more of a real world context and relate what I am learning
back to how it worked in the Organisation”
Amin is doing his
placement in Logistics at BMW Mini and says “ the best thing is talking to many different departments and seeing the
theory of management applied in business : you can see whole theory of
logistics and supply chain applied to the business”.
8 Enhances
your CV
Ropa did his
placement at Ascot Wealth Management : “Today
it is all about experience. Most employers will love everyone with a degree,
but with experience you really demonstrate you can do the job you will stand
out versus other candidates”
9. May
lead to a Graduate job
Kane did his placement at Enterprise Rent a Car and is now Campus brand manager for the Company and has a Graduate job lined up for after his Finals this Summer.
Kane said of Enterprise while on placement “they are very keen to promote everyone from ground up so after 10 months on placement if I know enough about the business, hit my targets I maybe able to get a promotion which opens it up to me to come back after Uni and gives that extra security”
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