Marketing Communications Assistant Review

Working at Sony Professional Solutions was a really great experience, you'll be treated like a real employee and will have plenty of opportunities to develop yourself professionally. Everyone is really friendly and supportive through-out your placement, and as there is also a lot of other interns there is a good social environment in the office. My role was a Marketing Communications Assistant, I really liked my role as it was very creative but I also always had the opportunity to develop my role into areas which I was more interested in.

I got on really well with my colleagues, my team often arrange met ups outside of work which was a really great way to get to know everyone better. At work you don't get treated like an Intern, you'll be given real tasks and everyone really values the help you can provide. I always felt that my ideas would be taken on board and colleagues tend to appreciate having a fresh perspective.

My manager was great she was really supportive and really pushed me to get the most out of my placement, we would have weekly meetings to discuss my workload and would always ask if there were projects or tasks I wanted to be more involved in. I set myself targets that I wanted to achieve at the beginning of the year and my manager would make sure to give me projects so I could achieve these.

On a daily basis I was pretty busy, I always had things I needed to work on weekly or monthly but would also have different projects I would be working on. If I ever felt that I didn't have much work on I could always ask my manger for more work and if I had to much on I could discuss with my manger to help prioritise. Some months are busier than others but on a whole there is always a lot of different stuff going on. You'll often get asked to work on Ad hoc tasks by various employees so it really helps to develop time management skills.

Throughout my placement I took on more responsibilities, at the beginning there were a few tasks which I owned but as the year went on I would take over projects that my manager would work on. By the end of my placement I was managing projects from beginning to end including events, webinars and I even had the opportunity to manage other students.

I have learnt a lot this year not only to develop my marketing knowledge but also professional etiquette. I had multiple opportunities to go on training courses in areas of particular interest to me and there was also online training available to develop marketing skills on a day to day. It was great to be able to apply what I had already learnt and see how it works in practise.

My office is very relaxed, everyone dresses smart/casual and everyone is friendly so people will be chatty. It is an open space so it is easy to talk to everyone and you tend to know most people in your departments so it is very relax. You'll never feel intimidated to approach anyone.

The organisation of my placement was good, I didn't have any issues I was able to get in contact with my manager and the intern I was replacing prior to me joining so was able to ask any questions I had and work out travel arrangements. Hays were the external agency which organise the paperwork and they were helpful most of the time.

I had lots of training during my placement whether that was on training courses, online or just one of my colleagues explaining products or software to me. I could have taken advantage of more but you learn a lot on a day to day basis anyway. My manager made sure that I developed my weaknesses by setting me targets or projects to complete in order to improve.

There are plenty of opportunities to come back and work at Sony, many of the people I have met this year had done internships here and returned. Also some of the previous interns returned or extended there placements so there are plenty of career prospects. I believe they are now starting graduate schemes here also so that would be another opportunity to return in the future.

Yes there were about 14 interns in total and we all got on really well, some of them lived in houses together but we would always try to organise nights out and other activities on the weekend. In the office we would all go to lunch every day together and there was a game room where you could play table tennis. I would often also have nights out with my manager and other colleagues which was a great way to get to know everyone.

I didn't live in Basingstoke but I believe the average was around £450 depending on where you wanted to live. I was spending around £95 a week commuting to work from home. Going out wasn't very expensive and there are lots of different activities like a trampoline park and Go karts near by.

I would not recommend a night out in Basingstoke but Reading and London are near by. With a few of the interns living further out we would sometimes try to go out in different places as Basingstoke only has two clubs and one is over 21s so some of the interns could not get in.

I didn't really get involved in activities outside work as I had a long commute but there were often sport being organised in the summer and many of the employees would invite everyone to performances of things there were in or going to see.