Analyst Review

Generally, I enjoyed my placement a lot. It contained an interesting mix of doing a job and exploring the wider processes of the business. For example, I was able to visit the Customer Service Centre in Leeds, several retailers around the country and a training course abroad - all showing different perspectives of the business with various stakeholders. The culture within the group is friendly, learner-friendly and attempts to provide a positive work-life balance.

There was a very friendly atmosphere at Volkswagen, which made it very easy to approach senior personnel around the group for 1-to-1’s for assistance of career pathway planning. Within the immediate team that I was working within, there was a good level of banter and we did a lot of things outside of work and at lunchtime which was great.

My reporting manager and line manager were both extremely supportive. If I had a query on how to complete a certain task, I felt comfortable in asking for help. If I was beginning to struggle with workload demands, then they were both on hand to offer support. Additionally, the management within my team would assist me in looking for opportunities to develop myself both through recommending training courses and setting up networking meetings.

The nature of the role that I held was partially cyclical; the first and last week of the month would be very similar as you are reporting on the month just gone and trying to promote opportunities as the month draws to a close. Depending on the level of business each month, how busy I was would differ each month. The middle two weeks of the month were partially self-directed which allowed me to control how much work I took on to complement how busy I was. Very flexible.

The tasks and responsibilities assigned to me were meaningful and it was easy to see the impact of the work produced. By seeing a direct impact of the work that I was doing, it felt like there was sufficient responsibility placed on me. During some parts of the placement, however, it would have been great to gain some project based-experience. Much of my role was cyclical, so I feel that I am missing project experience from my repertoire.

Time management has been the most valuable skill that I have learnt. Having multiple tasks to complete with various deadlines is very reminiscent of the layout of university, so I believe that this will be a great assist in the final year. Some skills, however, I am likely to forget or mitigate in following a year of not using them, but hopefully it will not be as bad as I anticipate.

Volkswagen cultivates a positive culture of being team working, commercial and driven. With that, it’s easy to feel motivated and there is a lot of communication on the performance and happenings of each brand and function so you never really feel like you’re out of the loop. Housing different brands in one building added a greater level of excitement.

The placement was well organised to a degree. The induction process and the information sharing on living in Milton Keynes etc. was very useful, but I feel that some contribution to the work carried out by undergraduates would be great. For example, creating projects or work streams for the undergraduates to complete to gain an array of experiences.

I was fortunate enough to complete many training courses during my time at Volkswagen. There were a large handful of compulsory training courses at the beginning which cover topics of competition law, quality control, data protection etc. but additional specialist courses such as task management and advanced Excel contributed to how effective I was.

There is an opportunity to acquire a Golden Ticket. This allows you to bypass a section of the graduate scheme application process by taking into account the work you have completed during the placement year showing some desire for retention. Despite this, only 2 undergraduates were accepted back from the last intake out of c.12 graduates employed.

Fairly good for a place close to London (30 minutes by train)

Milton Keynes itself has a lot of eateries and a couple of clubs which are average. The saving grace is the proximity to London.

Several football teams and running clubs.