Marketing Assistant Review

I worked at 3M for 13 months and I thoroughly enjoyed my placement. I believe this is attributed to my supportive co-workers, exciting job role suited to me, being given increased responsibility, the social aspect of being on a placement scheme with other students and working in a fun and friendly environment.

I felt extremely valued! People at 3M are always willing to help you, is described as 'sharing best practise', which I believe is one of 3M's values. This positive helpful attitude is perfect for a placement student as we often need to assistance and it is great to learn from helpful and experienced co-workers.

I worked with another placement student under one main supervisor/manager. Our manager supported us through every project and was constantly focusing on helping us develop ourselves and take projects in our chosen directions, while kindly critiquing us, which was fantastic! Also he involved us where appropriate in his projects and meetings so we could learn from him.

As a placement student it is important to have your own projects and to work on projects with others to improve interpersonal skills and learn from more experienced co workers. I was busy every day, 50% of my time was working on my own projects and 50% of my time was working on projects with other people (mostly with my direct manager). I realised when I started working that sometimes it can be frustrating waiting on others for informations, waiting for approvals etc, this is why I was glad to have a range of projects and responsibilities which meant I had a good constant flow of work.

I was given increased responsibility as the year went on. My manager gave me many great opportunities to make decisions, have increased control with his guidance and to focus on increasing skills that I believed to be weaker, like giving presentations. These opportunities abled me to develop so much more than I could have imagined. I also attribute this to 3M's versatility as a business, I was able to work with many functions (Supply Chain, Sourcing etc) and my projects differed widely. Combining this with increased responsibility enabled me to develop myself.

I highly recommend doing a placement. I believe it enables you to view your university work from a real world point of view and you leave university with a degree and a years experience, differentiating you from many other students. I also believe that my work ethic has changed and that I have more self discipline, as-well as improvement of important skills, like time and project management, which I can use to organise my academic work.

From the moment I stepped into the 3M office on my assessment day I felt really comfortable and put at ease. This feeling continued from the beginning to the end of my placement. Everyone I asked for help or advise from always gave me the time of day and were willing to help. Also from a social aspect people were really friendly and welcoming.

There 10 placement students based in my office which meant that we were able to meet new people and go out on social events etc. This was a great part of my year as we became good friends and were able to to help each other at work through sharing best practise also.