Customer Account Executive Review

Rightly regarded as one of the best companies to do a placement year with. No tea or coffee making & actual responsibility on a number of projects & tasks.If you're looking for a placement that will really develop your business skills to the next level and then the one after that then this is the company to come to.

I felt extremely valued by colleagues. Team were very open and included me very quickly in social activities and just every day chat. The majority of colleagues outside my team did not even know I was a placement student and those that did treated me how they would a normal colleague. Atmosphere in our team was really good fun and kept me going over the placement.

My manager provided me with a great amount of support during the placement. We met on a weekly basis, discussing my recent pieces of work I did, where we discussed what I did well and what I should still work on. In cases where he was outside of an office, he was sending me e-mails with his feedback and we had telephone conversations. Same can be said about the guidance. My manager guided me on how I should deal with the tasks I was asked to complete and in addition, he supported me with his advice on incentives I decided to pursue myself.

I found I was almost the right amount of busy. Some days were a bit quieter, but that was more down to the nature of my role. I almost always had something to do and was set deadlines to keep me busy. If you aren't busy, you're generally doing something wrong as you can always ask for more work.

A fantastic amount! You are treated as an equal compared to the rest of your colleagues. I was put into the lead role for 3 projects and for one project, I was the only person running the release of a new nationwide system. It far exceeded the expectations as I just thought I'd be doing the tea runs.

I think the main skills I will take away from the year are time management and holding people accountable for their actions. There are times where you have to be stern with people if they've made a mistake or missed a deadline, even if they're twice your age. At the same time, you have to hold yourself accountable and manage your time to make sure you meet deadlines set by your colleagues. Also, just the huge difference from a University schedule to a work one is a huge learning point

Atmosphere was really good fun. Everyone is really laid back and casual. Our team had good fun amongst each other but also with other teams in the office. I was also very surprised at how easy it was to talk to the senior leaders. You could easily drop them an email and have a half an hour meeting just to chat about every day life with them.

One of the negative points of the placement has been the organisation. While there are milestones such as six month and annual reviews, between these there isn't really much planned. I had to be quite proactive in terms of putting time in with managers. Many people also had issues receiving laptops on the first few days.

The company invests very much in me. I have attended big amount of official pieces of training, I had data scientist specialists available for consultation for me and I had sessions with many employees, including the directors, where they provided me advice and guidance. On the downside, some of the most exciting training were not accessible to Industrial Placements, what was slightly frustrating.

If you are deemed good enough, there are future employment prospects, but these are only offered to very few people. You can be directly fast tracked onto the grad scheme, fast tracked to the final interview or offered a entry level job. These are very competitive though and not many are offered these.

The company has a pretty good social scene. There were often nights out planned for birthdays or just general socialising. Both going out with the team and other placement students are fairly common place and there are big social events such as the Christmas party which everyone attends. The majority of placement students lived with each other as well, which obviously helps.

The office where I had my placement is located in Leatherhead, a small town in Surrey, consequently with a very limited offering of socializing. As a consequence, most of the socializing takes place in London, what in addition to very high costs of all the services, requires buying train tickets. Overall it was expensive.

Again, varies greatly depending on office. Central London and Liverpool are great. Lots of bars and clubs are around as you'd expect for major cities. If you are based in the more rural offices, there's almost no nightlife but it isn't a far journey into the city if you would like to have a night out.

The opportunities were there if you bothered to look for them. While some might be more hidden than others, there are work sports teams, choirs, conferences with other companies that you could be involved if you stumbled across the right people. The company could be a bit better at advertising these opportunities though as sometimes it's pure luck that you do find them.