Engineering Support Administrator Review

I enjoyed my placement year so much. Even on the days where I was super-busy. The work I was doing was equally challenging and rewarding. I carried out a range of tasks, all of which interested me greatly. All of my co-workers were a great laugh and brilliant to work with.

Everyone I worked with was super friendly and helpful. People always had time to help me and during meetings my opinions and ideas were valued. I received the departmental quarterly achievement award which made me feel fantastic about how I fit in with the team. The culture at Screwfix is the perfect balance; you want to perform at your best and you are rewarded when you do so.

My managers were always receptive to anything I brought up and they fully understood any issues me or anyone else was having. I was always encouraged to spend time learning new skills. I was thrown in at the deep end at some points but this made me realise that it can be the fastest and best way to learn.

At first it was very slow, but with time I slowly picked up more and more things. At some points I had four or five separate pieces of work simultaneously! The days would go by amazingly quickly. The good part is that even when I had loads to do I wasn't pressured into spending lunch times or staying after work to finish everything.

I owned a lot of pieces of work that have made many positives changes for the digital department. For some of these I was given the responsibility of architecting the solutions myself. The only drawback was that I never got the chance to truly work as part of a project team, mostly due to resourcing constraints that were out of people's control. However this allowed me to work on a range of different smaller pieces of work through which I learnt a lot more.

I truly feel much more well-developed having completed a placement year at Screwfix. I have learnt new hard and soft skills; from learning new technologies all the way to presenting to important business stakeholders. I am much more confident going in to my final year of degree study and feel that I can offer potential employers much, much more.

It was a relaxed and friendly environment. Everyone is working hard but there was always time for a laugh. You could put your headphones in and get loads of work done when needed, or sit around a desk with colleagues and work through a problem together. When I left the offices had started to be refurbished and the ones I'd seen looked very nice!

For me there was not much structure to what I was doing. This meant at first I did not have a massive amount to do. However, once I started to pick up more work I had more than enough. This best part was that it was all real work which had an immediate impact on the business. I feel that the structure of the placement depends entirely on what work needs doing at the time, which is always varying.

I attended a few training courses, the most beneficial of which was the presentation skills course as it was an area I wanted to develop in. I also got the opportunity to go to London to attend a conference and a hackathon on behalf of the company (which we won!) It was an amazing experience.

Within the Digital Development department, they are more often than not recruiting new people. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and I am sure I would enjoy it just as much if I were to go back. Kingfisher, Screwfix’s parent company also employs graduates into relevant roles to my course and skills.

I lived with other placement students during my time there and we went out most weekends. I also had several great nights out with colleagues. There were also team days out and social events which were all good fun. Everyone was so friendly and easy to get on with inside and outside of work.

Yeovil is very cheap to rent and live in. A car is fairly important as public transport isn’t great in the area.

There is only one nightclub in Yeovil and it is not the best. There is Sherborne nearby with some great pubs, however Yeovil itself hasn’t got much to offer. It was ok for a year, however.

There are many social sports teams; from cricket to football. There is also a good walking club as well which does regular walks on the weekends.