Human Resources Intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of my placement with General Electric. I was trusted by the HR team to carry out a number of daily tasks. My placement with General Electric felt like I was an integral part of the team. I would certainly recommend a placement with this company!

I was treated like an intergral part of the team where the HR managers would delegate tasks to me and trusted me to complete them. As well as the direct HR team I felt like the wider employee base thoroughly respected and valued me and my advice. The team would provide me with projects for me to deliver on and would present this to the senior leadership team.

My direct manager was not always my first point of contact, however the support was available from the HR team whenever it was required by me. As well as this General Electric have a number of centre of excellences who would provide fantastic support to me in my role on a regular basis.

My day never stopped. I never found a moment to be bored or to watch the time. When I wasn’t speaking with employees in the office, I was attending meetings or carrying out administration tasks. As well as this I had projects to work on in the background so if it was a quiet day in the office I had plenty to get on with!

I was given all administration responsibility to work with the centre of excellences to ensure that employee records were up to date and to ensure the recruitment cycle ran smoothly and effectively. The HR managers would allow me to sit in on disciplinary meetings to expose me to new settings and during the end of my placement I was actually carrying out investigation meetings as he only HR representative.

I took my placement after I had finished my degree but I feel like I have taken away valuable skills that will last me a lifetime. The confidence that I learnt through the year will carry me through life. I learnt to be firm but fair when dealing with HR policies and procedures which I believe will be extremely valuable in the future.

The atmosphere in my office was extremely positive. We were a very close knit team and we also had extremely positive relationships with the client bases also. The office was never quiet, as the door was always open for employees and there was never an hour in a day when someone wasn’t in the office for advice/a chat.

The GE placement is set up extremely well for interns. As well as carrying out our regular day jobs, there was also a programme called the ‘Further Skills Programme’ which further widened our skills and got us meeting a number of staff around the site. This took up approx 10% of our total placement carrying our workshops and training.

I felt like the organisation couldn’t do enough. I wasn’t involved in specific HR attaining courses however I shadowed the HR managers in important calls/meetings daily. GE has a tool called personal development (PD) where you have regular touch points with your line manager, other employees can here give you insights which involve behaviours to continue/consider. This allows you to understand your strengths and your weaknesses and to improve where possible.

This is the one downfall of the GE placement. There is very little pathways into a permanent job and being a recent graduate I was hoping that following a successful placement that their may be roles available however they are very restricted by headcount and at the time of me leaving my placement, there were no suitable HR roles in the UK. I will definitely be sure to keep my eye on GE roles for the future however.

There was a great social aspect to this placement. At the site I was at in Groby there was around 25 interns. We instantly got into a group chat and began organising social activities. The further skills programme also allowed us to socialise as a big group also rather than just carrying out our different day jobs.

I was lucky enough to live with a family member so living expenses weren’t too high. Leicester however has a reasonable living cost from what I heard from other interns and the socialising cost was no more than most other cities outside of London. Bars and pubs were of a reasonable price.

I didn’t experience the nightlife as well as I should have done! I went on two nights out however and both were good. I also visited bars that were pretty standard. I wouldn’t say that the Leicester has an amazing nightlife however, I think it was more the fact that when we went out we were in very big groups.

Similarly to above, as a group of interns we went bowling, pubs, go karting etc. However these were all organised solely by the interns and none organised by the company itself. The company did run a Christmas party however at Leicester football stadium which was free and extremely worthwhile attending!