Pricing and Sales operations analyst Review

I greatly enjoyed my placement year at 3M. My colleagues were lovely and everyone that I met with inside the organisation were all pleasant and approachable. As 3M take on many placement students at the same time for placement years, there is a good social life available as well .

I felt very valued within my department and within my team as well. From day 1 I was thrown in at the deep end and given a great deal of responsibility which made me feel both welcome and valued from the get go. As more opportunities opened up throughout the year I was given more responsibility and I continued to feel valued.

I felt like I was given a good level of support from my manager and team leader throughout the year. I had weekly one to ones with my team leader where I received feedback on my performance and the opportunity to ask for help and guidance on my work and tasks.

Each day at work my workload was different but I never felt short of work . There were quarterly payroll calculations for sales representatives that would increase my workload as they came around so there was definitely peaks and troughs in how busy I was on a daily basis .

I was given a great deal of responsibility over the course of the year. Handling payment calculations is an important task as pay is such an emotive subject. I got to know people's salaries and performance details which I found to be very informative and made me feel trusted within my department.

I felt like I joined 3M with a good skill set already but I definitely learned new skills that I had no prior experience with such as how to use SAP systems. As a placement student you get third party training sessions which are very fun and informative on subjects such as communication and efficiency.

The atmosphere is a perfect mix of relaxed and serious. The offices are all open plan so there is a sense of everyone being approachable and friendly chat was never shunned. There was an effort made to bring different teams together once a month to share coffee and cakes to try and get people interacting who normally wouldn't.

The placement was very well set up from start to finish and the HR staff member who ran the talent development events made them really enjoyable. I was settled into my team fairly quickly and given adequate training to be able to perform my daily tasks. Help was always available if I was having issues as well.

The company paid for third party external talent development training sessions including green belt training in lean six sigma. This was a fantastic opportunity as it is usually very expensive to get this. The company also taught me a great deal of responsibility and I really felt they trusted me to carry out my job well.

I would definitely consider rejoining 3M if I was given the chance. Unfortunately 3M have suspended their graduate scheme which means that i would have to apply for a full time job straight out of uni instead. In addition the headquarters I was based in was very far from my family home so Id probably be more inclined to find employment closer to home.