Assistant Site Manager Review

Felt incredibly motivated to carry out my job and go to work every morning throughout the entire year. My colleagues around me made my time thoroughly enjoyable and incredibly worth while.

I was tasked and empowered with important jobs an roles. My colleagues entrusted me with crucial work that I was realistically achievable given my experience.

Given the incredibly busy nature and large scale of construction projects, I always given the necessary support to carry out the tasks I'd been given. Where the support did not come about immediately, I was encouraged to find things out for myself and this subsequently enabled me to learn more and gain a superior experience.

The particular project I was based on throughout my year was subject to scenarios that wouldn't occur on most projects. As a result I did find myself working particularly hard, although this was obviously no bad thing with the increased level of experience that resulted from this. I also found that my understanding of a professional environment increased as well, my year in industry gave me a true taste of what working involves.

In terms of construction specifically, I was first positioned below the M&E manager on the project assisting him. Then for the second half of the year, after I had demonstrated a certain level of capability, I was tasked with monitoring and controlling the process of handing over the entire building to the client. This list is not exhaustive but all the compliance documentation, from BREEAM capabilities to As-Built drawings for example were under my supervision.

I believe some modules I study at university are irrelevant to the real life industry, however what I learnt on my placement will greatly enhance/ assist me when I go back into industry on the graduate schemes etc.

The atmosphere definitely ran in cycles. The project wasn't successful and motivation levels therefore dropped and increased quite erratically. However I still enjoyed myself, the lack of progress was just very frustrating at times and was out of the site teams control.

Due to the nature of the industry it is very difficult for a HR department to predict where your placement will be, however once I was sent to a particular site the organisation and overall structure of the placement was good. I was sent on numerous training courses and I was properly allocated within the business.

As mentioned above I was sent on numerous courses - the most predominant one as an undergraduate site manager was the SMSTS and First Aid. This enabled me to supervise operatives onsite without a more senior member of staff depending on the activity of course. I didn't expect much more on a placement year, however this expectation will increase once I graduate.

The office I was based out of is going through some significant changes in terms of staff and the labour turnover is very high. The future work book is also not encouraging.

One of member student from my university was based out of the same office however we rarely saw each other ( although we didn't plan on meeting up either)

Standard London cost (fairly expensive)

Central London.

Not particular but there were some activities and CSR events that I could attend