Healthcare Placement Review

The placement offered lots of opportunities to get involved with various projects in your area. Given some responsibility for projects, however often involved working with a Manager and getting the back end work from this. The performance development sessions (away from your day job) were very insightful and helped identify your working styles and what you would like in your career (whether at Boots or not).

Overall, you do feel a sense of value from your colleague and stakeholders. Input into meetings and work is encouraged, however, not sure it is always taken on board/recognised. As a company Boots does promote celebrating success, but think this is dependent on what team you are in and how they do so.

At the start of your placement you are given a supervisor (line manager) who is within your team. Initially, all my work load came from this person, however as the placement went on, I began to work with more members of the team across various projects. Further to this, I had weekly 1:1 sessions with my line manager regarding work etc. *It is important to create a good relationship with this person as this will heavily shape your work life.

Overall, the workload tented to fluctuate across the year. When in the thick of a project, work load was quite high and deadlines were very tight. Depending on your team/role, you can receive some volume of ad hoc quick tasks (usually coming from your senior managers) as well as your various projects.

From the off I was given plenty of responsibility within the team and given a good work load. Definitely do not be afraid to ask questions from the start! As understanding the context is very important when doing a task (without context, it is difficult to really get to grips with what you are doing).

The skills I have gained over the year are invaluable to my post university working life. I do not think the skills will particularly assist my degree, but I feel very confident knowing I can apply this to a graduate job/scheme and be a leg up on those who did not do a placement! Getting an insight into how a business operates and the process involved is very useful!

As a company, Boots has a really good feel around the Head Office. The atmosphere is quite relaxed and some departments have a casual Fridays and cake/quiz afternoon also. Relationships are key at Boots, and the company invests a lot in creating a good team/work ethos for everyone. Speaking to people it is evident this is a high reason for people working here!

Initially, you apply for your placement and you don't really have much sight of what role you will be doing in Head Office (day to day responsibilities etc.) - just the department you are applying to. Some departments are definitely set up and well structured better than others e.g. Finance. Once starting in your team, it is definitely worth explaining what you want from the year and areas you want to get involved with - Otherwise you could be just dumped the work nobody else wants!

The scheme itself offers great personal development. With regular sessions throughout the year (with the YII cohort). These sessions are invaluable and I definitely would not have had chance to do this elsewhere. As for team/day role specific training, again i think this depends what department you are in. Boots as a company offers plenty of training sessions over the year (in a multitude of areas) - So if you are interested in any of these, let your line manager know!

All depends on the role that I would be offered! I think that if you are on the YII or Graduate scheme, then progression is relatively good here - however, if you join the company as a normal job, it can take some time to move up the levels (you definitely need somebody higher up championing you).

I lived with other fellow YII placement students in the heart of Nottingham, with plenty of others only a 5 minute walk down the road. The social aspect of the placement was very high, with regular interaction with friends on the scheme (even in different departments) e.g. having dinner or meeting up after work.

To rent in Nottingham is relatively ok for price. If you want to live right in the city the cost is slightly high, but definitely worth it for the social aspect of life.

Living in the city, the nightlife was very good. Nottingham has plenty of bars to go out drinking (make use of the happy hours as prices can be high on the weekends!). As well as this, there are plenty of restaurants (including all the main chains and plenty of nice independents which you can get dinner at for a good price.

There were a few activities that happened outside work e.g. department football However, think this relied on who you knew/your team.