Service Excellence Industrial Placement Student Review

I really enjoyed my placement year at Mars, where I worked in Mars Global Services for 13 months. I was given a lot of responsibility in my role, my team were fantastic, and the focus they put on your self-development is amazing. Would highly recommend working there if you want a role that's more than making tea and coffee!

I became very close with my team very quickly and felt very much like part of the family by the end of my placement. I was working with people in the US who normally see placement students as those you give tasks to and nothing more, but they quickly came to realise that I was to be treated as a full member of the team. My opinions were valued by the team as well as by others in the office, and very often my advice/ideas were utilised when I offered them. I will really miss working with them.

My line manager was absolutely amazing, we really bonded over my year and became close friends, much more than line manager and placement student. She was very focused on helping me with my development, and I felt like I could go to her and ask anything. If I needed help with something, or wanted more/less to do, she was happy to help me. When I had personal issues during the year she was amazingly supportive and helped me through it. A pretty awesome first line manager.

My workload varied a lot over the year due to the nature of my team. Due to projects being cancelled/pushed back, on occasion I was bored with not enough to do, whereas other times I have been busy all week with barely time to spare. I have learnt that this is normal during a work environment, but was challenging to learn how to work around it.

I was able to manage my team by controlling our team meetings throughout the year, which was a great responsibility and helped me learn how to manage others as well as be flexible with my style. As I progressed through my placement I was able to take on more and more responsibility, and on occasion was working on projects that were beyond the capabilities of a normal placement student. That really showed me how much responsibility they were giving me. Responsibility is one of the Mars Five Principles, so they are very keen to give you as much as you can handle.

My development this year will provide a great base for the rest of my life, and not just work skills but also other personal ones, such as how I manage relationships with others. It has helped me learn that it is good to focus on my development in the future and given me good ideas on how to continue this even after I move on.

Very relaxed and informal. We had a great coffee area where you could go and chat to others and catch up. There was even an initiative called Coffee Connections which encouraged this. Very friendly people and the atmosphere reflected this. My office was great at providing the right work-life balance. Events such as the office Christmas party and summer BBQ also helped.

The application and recruitment process was generally spot on; their communication was brilliant and the induction when I started was very well run. However as we went throughout the year this communication and organisation did tail off a bit as they started to focus on the next year's recruitment, so could do with some improvement.

I was encouraged to undergo as many training courses as I needed to (with line manager approval) throughout the year, e.g. facilitation, crucial conversations, ITIL. I wasn't able to do everything, e.g. PRINCE2, sometimes due to cost vs benefit. If I needed a course I was generally able to do it though, which was great. It depends on how flexible your line manager is with the budget.

There are many opportunities to apply for a graduate position after you finish your placement there, however the benchmark is extremely high and the pressure of the scheme is high, so for some it may not be very appealing (but they are some of the highest paid graduate schemes available). There are also opportunities for direct entry roles after you graduate which might suit some people more. Once you work for Mars and get into the network, the opportunities are great! Because it is such a large global company, and you are encouraged to move roles every 2-4 years, there are many opportunities to work abroad and in different functions.

There were a few placement students in my year and I lived with some of them, so it was a good social scene as long as I was willing to be social. If we'd wanted to we could have been going out every weekend drinking etc but that didn't happen with us. The grads in the office helped improve the social scene and they were always fun on a night out!

I lived in Slough for the year (not a great place) which was very cheap to live in (we paid ~£350pcm each). If you want to live outside of Slough the price does increase a lot (e.g. Windsor can be >£600pcm each), so it depends where you want to live. Socialising depends where you go out, Windsor and London can be expensive for a night out, especially for students.

Slough had nothing to offer in terms of nightlife, but Windsor was the general place we visited for a night out. We also went to Reading once, and London a couple of times, both not too far away by train.

If you want to, you can join the Mars sports clubs (e.g. football, hockey, Park runs, squash). They also have the Mars Volunteering Programme which happens during work hours. You can be as social as you like with others outside of work and do non-Mars organised activities (e.g. climbing, trampolining).