Marketing Communications Intern Review

Overall, I really enjoyed my time in this position. I was able to partake in a great variety of projects as well as being actively encouraged to pursue and "own" my ideas. This is extremely rewarding, knowing that projects I started will be continued after I finish my time with the company.

I felt very valued by my colleagues, I was often asked for my opinion on both work and non-work related matters. The respect I received made me feel far more like a full-time team member than simply an "intern". While some of my duties could be described as best suited for an intern, that didn't mean they were menial tasks by any means, and I was given plenty of responsibility while fully supported by my team at all times.

Going on placement is absolutely a learning curve, and despite your efforts you will still make mistakes and there is a "teething" period when you get started certainly. Fortunately my manager was happy to help me if id made an error/ oversight, and wouldn't just correct something, but would show me where I had gone wrong/how to avoid it in the future. Essentially how to learn from my mistakes. This was invaluable.

In a week I had a set amount of tasks to do, and this is also the same at the turning of the month. Doing these tasks usually takes 60/70% of your time in a day. This meant I had 30/40% of my time to pursue other projects/ideas etc. The only down side to this was that some days, if there wasn't anything else I was working on, or there wasn't anything new from my team to work on, I would dawdle and perhaps spend my time a little unproductively to fill out the day. This was a rare occurrence however.

This role gives you a vast amount of responsibility, I was solely responsible for managing 6 social media channels and two YouTube channels, which was only a fraction of my job. You are encouraged to pursue and run your own projects, which of course you are helped with where needed. There are many incidences where there are a number of people depending on you too, which was great! I was also involved with organising and running some of our events, where every team member there is working together and relying on each other in an all-hands-on-deck scenario.

I would say surprisingly, given my degree is related, that very little of what I learned through two years of University was actually exercised on placement, theory I mean. Much of the practical skills and planning came in handy, and while on placement these were developed to a far more comprehensive level, which i really believe will be helpful in both my degree and beyond. One of the other advantages is the professionalism you adopt when working in this environment. I feel far more equipped to talk to other professionals than I ever could have through Uni alone, and my work ethic has changed substantially. Prior to placement I was quite lazy and disorganised, I feel this has totally changed, largely to do with the fact you want to work harder because of the team mentality, and you take pride in what you are doing. Which is a huge motivator.

The atmosphere in the office as a whole was friendly, there were never arguments between people for example. Luckily the marketing team are in the same area of the office, and so we would have a lot of fun between us, a lot of the rest of the office seemed far quieter, although this is hard to know for sure as we are based on the top floor and half the office is downstairs.

Very well organised. The Marketing Communications placement scheme has been running for a number of years and they have cracked it. There is a good balance of work, appropriate responsibilities, and good opportunities. The management is excellent, no one breathes down your neck but there are always a number of people ready to help when you need it.

The company provided several training courses for me. Including the Franklin Covey project management training course and Franklin Covey DISC training course. Both of which were a huge amount of fun to partake on and I found both useful in my job, especially the Project management training, which came into its own when after the half way point in the year I started brainstorming and running my own projects/campaigns. When I started my placement my training constituted a one week handover period with my predecessor. This was good, however i felt slightly overwhelmed and would have like a little more time to get to grips with my responsibilities. This isn't a major issue however.

The job/role is very good. However this is a B2B company for very technical engineering products, and I would rather focus on B2C and services, as I think this interests me more as far as a career is concerned. However, knowing the people I would be working with, and considering the knowledge i now have at the end of placement, I would consider a job if there was an opening.

There is plenty to do in the local area, it is our own fault we took so long to take advantage of this fact! I think there was a shyness among some of the other interns at first, and this created barriers to socialising outside of work. Once we did start going out though we did have fun, the social scene is what you make of it, there are things to do if you want to do them. Milton Keynes has many bars and leisure activities, Towcester not so much but still isn't bad.

I lived at home while on placement here, so I couldn't accurately comment. Although i'd say pretty reasonable.

Not so much in the way of clubs. In Milton Keynes there is Pinks and now Ocean, which aren't bad in all fairness (Pinks). But there is a lack of variety when you're limited to two clubs only. There are loads of pubs and bars though, a casino too, and a couple Bar/club hybrids like Revs.

A weekly badminton group would go and play on a Monday, there wasn't a huge amount besides that. However i did get the opportunity to attend the National Undergraduate Employer (NUE) awards which was a fantastic experience. I should of mentioned this earlier actually - Mentor is now the 12th best medium-sized undergraduate employer in the UK, and rightly so in my opinion!