Campaign Manager Review

I have enjoyed it to an extent. It has not been something that I would like to do for the rest of my life, however it has opened my eyes to the working world to a greater extent than any other placement that I have previously done. I have learned a huge amount which I will be able to transfer to any business or industry sector that I work in upon graduation, even if that does vary from the placement that I have completed.

The extent of value that I have felt from colleagues at the company has varied massively. I would say that more than half of the people I have been surrounded by over the past few months have been great, and have valued my contribution without any doubt. However, there have also, quite clearly, been a number of employees at the company who have struggled to appreciate my - or any other students on a placement's - presence. This has been one of the main reasons why I would not like to go forward with the company.

The weakest part of my placement. I was assigned to a line manager who was clearly far to busy to take on the role, which they continue to take on every year to my understanding. Having spoken to a number of colleagues and to employees in HR about the fact that my line manager has barely had the chance to hold a conversation with myself for more than five minutes in the time that I have been with the company, they have informed me that this is nothing new with the particular manager, who simply has too much on their plate to offer any further support to anyone 'below them'.

This has varied massively across the placement. In the first few weeks things were very quiet, however this changed from around week 4, and I was since quite busy on the placement. I believe a massive reason for having so little work at first was because of that mentioned above - the fact my line manager was too busy to actually speak to me about the amount I had on. However, through persistently asking colleagues if there was anything that I would be able to help with, I eventually managed to pick up a considerable amount of work, and was very busy towards the end of the placement.

This has been the highlight of my placement. Again contributed to by the lack of line manager presence that I have experienced, I was given a large amount of responsibility on the placement - which is massively important to me - and this has contributed to my development as an employee and as a person in general. After just days with the company, I was thrown straight into things and had to make the correct decisions based on judgement and passed experience as much as possible, which has without doubt given me more confidence to do likewise in a range of situations from now on.

With the exception of working in a team and maintaining a consistent and high quality stream of communication with those around me, I am not sure that this placement will help me with the final year of my degree studies. However it will, without doubt, further me as an employee in whatever work I go on to do immediately after graduating, and from then on. I now feel even more prepared than before to go straight into a major company and make a real difference, should I be given the necessary level of responsibility to do so. I have always been confident in myself and what I have to offer, but this placement has certainly enhanced that further, and for that I am definitely thankful.

Another highlight of the placement. Every day I would walk into and later leave an office that was covered in vibrancy and enthusiasm, and the majority of people that filled it also brought with them a considerable amount of happiness and seemed generally happy to see me and one another. Working on team projects and with others within different teams was almost always a pleasure, with colleagues supporting one another in whatever capacity they saw possible. With a focus on my future career, I would say this pleasant atmosphere was incredibly important and beneficial, as no doubt facilitated my networking throughout the placement, which I learned the importance of even more.

This was an issue. Like I have mentioned, I received little to no support from my line manager throughout the internship, and it was not for others to really take on the role that they should have been doing, which made the organisation quite poor. From day one I was told that I would be working on one very large project, and by the end of the placement I perhaps spent all of three full days working on it, with other projects spontaneously taking the lead in terms of what I was working on, as the original campaign was non-existent for most of my placement's duration. As I was excited about working on the original campaign, it was very disappointing to discover, over time, that I would in all truth by doing next to nothing on it.

I would be lying if I said that npower didn't really invest in me and the other interns and grads whilst I was with the company. I had the opportunity to travel the country for training days and courses, which developed me as a person and certainly as a company employee. Although there were personal developmental opportunities and events laid out by the company, I would suggest that these were few and far between in comparison to more industry-specific training opportunities that were put in place. Nevertheless, these days and events were worthwhile for any member of the company, and certainly for those new to the company and to the industry in general, which many of us were.

The experience I have had has not turned me off working for the organisation, but rather the specific job/ placement that I have undertaken. I would not write things off completely, but it is unlikely that I would return to that area of the organisation, in a similar role to the one that I have undertaken thus far. With that in mind, it is worth mentioning the appeal of the graduate scheme on the back of the support and training that we have received during the internship, and it is certainly worth thinking about even if not something that I am likely to follow through with. The company definitely value graduates.

Not particularly. There was a social scene but this was based solely around drinking - like many seem to be! As someone who does not drink alcohol for a number of personal reasons, I would definitely have struggled to get excited about this kind of opportunity, and it did not attract me to the company and its colleagues, or make me any more comfortable as an employee. If anything, the lack of other opportunities to engage with colleagues and fellow placement students in an informal manner actually put me off the company, as it meant that many of the others got closer to each other whilst I did not feel like this opportunity presented itself for me.

More expensive than I expected. There was a lot going on socially - if people had of been more exciting about checking it out - but it was definitely more expensive than I would have expected for the a city like Birmingham, where pay is not close to that of other areas. The cost of living was not great, but a reason for that was how short my placement was and how that massively limited the options of finding a feasible place to stay during the placement. On top of that I was still paying for my student accommodation in Durham, which made the placements very expensive all in all, and I barely made a penny from working full time on it.

This question is answered above, to an extent. Though we did not really have the opportunity to experience it as many of the fellow placement students and myself had events on and things to do at the weekend which meant we were rarely altogether, the couple of times we did go out were decent.

Again, this is largely mentioned above, with the lack of range in social activities that were on offer with colleagues and fellow placement students. There were however opportunities to play sport and get involved in events for the organisation's charity partner, which I took when possible.