Summer Scheme Intern Review

I really enjoyed working on the Savills Summer scheme and I learnt a lot about the work of a surveyor. The month placement enabled me to undertake a range of tasks including finding comparable data, writing reports, helping with valuations and assisting the team on site visits. I was able to get involved in a range of activities outside of the office, including four site visits, a planning committee and an auction. I would like to gain more experience similar to this, as I found it interesting and valuable experience that I would be interested to pursue further in a future career.

I felt that my colleagues really valued me as an employee and benefitted from my assistance. I was able to help with projects as they progressed over the time I was working, so could help with a range of tasks and learn more than i have on my previous 2 week placements. I feel that I did help the team, particularly in report writing, and I have been asked if I would like to undertake more experience with the office in the near future so feel that I was definitely appreciated.

My supervisor was extremely helpful during my placement and always ensured that I had enough work to do and that I knew what I was doing. They also helped me to organise office events, such as a Meet and Greet lunch so that I could meet other departments. My supervisor helped me not only with my work in the office, but also to meet other colleagues and made me feel welcome during my experience.

Every day I felt that I had a sufficient amount of work to do, however this gradually built up more over the month so that I was busiest in the final week. It was a good amount of workload, however I often needed guidance to know which work should be prioritised so that I knew which deadlines were most important, and I also found it harder by the final week to balance my time doing office work whilst writing up my handover project. This resulted in me writing some of my project from home out of office hours.

I was given lots of responsibilty and I feel that I was trusted with the work that I was given. This is evident by the fact that I was allowed to help with report writing and valuations, and organise site visits by making phone calls with clients independently. My manager even said at the end, that he was impressed with my initiative and independence when completing tasks.

My internship has given me extremely valuable experience in this particularly profession, and has given me an insight to the work of a surveyor. I have also been able to gain more understanding of other departments, such as Auctions and Rural, and have been offered work experience in the rural office in September. My experience was particularly relevant to my studies as it has prepared me for my Masters course in Planning and Development and given me relevant preparation.

The office was very friendly and welcoming as soon as I arrived and I feel that I developed good relationships with all of my colleagues. We tried to find time to go out for drinks outside of work too, so that we could socialise and network. I was also encouraged to get involved with as much as possible inside the office, and going on site visits. The workload in the office was very busy at times, therefore understandably there were a couple of weeks where everyone had a lot of work on and the atmosphere felt quite stressful, so we socialised less out of office hours. But, overall, the office experience was enjoyable.

The overall placement was very well organised and I enjoyed the departmental overviews that were set up by the graduate team in London. However, occasionally it was difficult to log in to the conference calls as the phones wouldn't always connect straight away. The training sessions were very useful and gave me more information about different work in Savills. I think that the overall work placement was ran efficiently and I felt that the info pack given at the beginning of the placement was also very useful.

The training videos led by the London office were extremely useful to my training and development and I felt i learnt more about Savills as a company and a brand. The written and numerical tests, as well as the handover project were also useful training methods to test our ability, and assess our written and numerical skills.

The company is very appealing to me, and I particularly like how much they invest in social activities as well as working in the office. There are opportunities to get involved in a range of social events, charity organisation and sports activities with Savills. I also like how there is an opportunity for career progression with the company.

Yes, particularly the graduate surveyors. My office had a high percentage of graduates and there was a great social scene. The team tried to go for regular drinks after work, and went to a RICS networking event on the final friday night. This really appeals to me and is something I would look for in a company in the future.

For me, I lived from home and commuted so this was cheap. However, travelling into work over the 4 week period cost me bus fare. Nottingham is a relatively cheap area to socialise and is somewhere that would appeal to me in the future.

I didn't really experience the Nightlife in Nottingham during my internship but there are lots of bars and clubs to socialise in.

Yes, I went for work drinks a couple of times, and got invited to a social RICS event, summer soirée. There was also a cricket match being organised by my team colleague so I would say there is a good balance of social events and activities outside of work to get involved in.