HR Industrial Placement Review

100% would recommend this placement to anyone looking to start their career in HR. I am doing a Psychology degree and wanted to explore what career options were out there during my placement and as soon as I completed my first week I was certain that HR was where I wanted to end up. After coming in knowing no 'business terminology' whatsoever, I am leaving with the confidence that I can walk straight into another HR job.

The office environment here is extremely friendly. The placement programme has been running for a number of years and everyone onsite is super supportive of helping people learn and gain an experience. My department in particular was like a family, we got on so well together and because of this I felt really comfortable to share my opinions knowing that they would never be judged. Even the Senior Leadership Team, in companies it is cliché that they are the 'scary' bunch but here, they are all really welcoming and genuinely interested in you and what you are all about - perfect environment for a placement.

I genuinely feel like there is nothing more that I managers could have done to give me more support. No matter how busy or tedious my question was, they would stop everything to give me their undivided attention and this was something I could always rely on. I particularly valued being able to ask open questions to both my manager and supervisor to learn more about the job. They are so resourceful, experienced and enthusiastic about helping me learn that they offered me to attend various training sessions just to develop myself as a person.

As with any job you would have your busy weeks and slow weeks. Here, the only slow period I had was a couple of weeks in August when I first started (due to holiday season). After this the workload on a whole was perfect, it was never too much that it would stress you out but it would never be too little where you would get bored. There are standard tasks that you need to do everyday but aside from that, no day was the same it was a constant change from one task to the next which was all very exciting.

I was given a huge amount of responsibility, whereby I was actually classed as a full-time employee rather than just a temporary person. My biggest responsibility (and achievement) would be that I ran the recruitment project for replacing all placement students (which was 10 students across 8 departments). I was able to thing over everything myself and once my manager approved it, it was down to me to make sure that everything was organised. In addition to this I managed all of the recruitment vacancies that we had in the office and had to supply daily-weekly updates to both my supervisor and manager. Naturally there will be parts of the job that I cannot get partake in such as grievances but my managers would always attempt to involved so I could still learn about this.

I truly believe that the skills I have learnt here are skills for life. I am without a doubt not the same person I was 12-months ago, I've matured, learnt about how businesses' operate and developed my communication and computer skills massively. Working full-time has meant that I have developed a daily routine, one which is organised and efficient. My hope is that I can continue this routine in my final of uni so that I can stay organised with my assignments and dissertation.

It was great. My manager loves to bake which meant that every Monday we would sample her work from the weekend (bonus)! On a genuine note the atmosphere was serious after all we are here to do a job, our most important value in the office is making everyone outside the office see that we are always busy, we know what we are talking about and that we are approachable. That is definitely something you will get pulled on if you aren't doing it. With that being said as we are all so busy and focus so hard we do have moments through everyday where we can have a laugh and relieve some 'stress.' You definitely will never experience any negativity towards you, no matter how much you mess up (believe me), all feedback is positive, constructive and designed to understand how you 'messed-up' and how can they help you make it right again.

My experience was average - I started really early (at the start of June) and there were other students that started at the end of August. When we had an placement meet and greet day it was nice but it would've been better for us to have know each other at the start before we joined. This is something that I had worked on in the year and when we rolled it on this year we had a great response from the students. We had organised ice-breakers, food and activities to help them all bond as a group so they build better friendships rather than work-relationships.

The company had a contract with a local college during the first half of my placement, they offered a variety of training courses (such as word, excel, communication, leadership training etc), all for free. So long as I had my managers approval I was allowed to attend any course I felt would benefit me. In addition to this, my manager would also encourage me to attend training sessions that she thought I should attend.

I'm going to leave this as 50:50. This is only because you can only be invited back if there is a vacancy available. With that being said a number of placement students from the year before me have come back as a temporary worker until they can be taken on. If you do well in your year and are remembered, there will be recommendations sent out to other sites and that will increase your chances of coming back into the business.

Not really. My group were not a social bunch and kind of kept themselves to themselves. There were the odd one or two that I would spend my lunch times with which was nice. There was nothing where the business promoted us to work together unless our departments needed each other. It wasn't until the end of the year (when people came out of their shell) that we did something as a group and by then it was too late. This is something that we are looking into: keeping the students meeting up throughout the year. We have rolled out group projects that they can get involved in and we encouraged this years bunch to make a WhatsApp chat so that they can arrange the social nights between them. In the department we socialised more than I expected, we went out for leaving dues, made an effort for everyone's birthday and did a lot together for Christmas. More locally we would go out of the office to the site canteen and have lunch together or come together Friday to try all of the fast food in the area.

We are based by Birmingham Airport, not too far from town or Soilhull. It will be a little pricier than the average company because we are based in a busy city, however we are on a good wage so it's not too bad. If you know the area you will be able to find out when the best times and places are to go out.

Nightlife has loads on options, either Birmingham Town or Solihull Town. There are a variety of bars restaurants, clubs activities that you can do to occupy yourself in the evening. Solihull is a really good place to go, it has everything in the town and it's not too big or too small.

There were some opportunities. There were a number of charity events that we hosted, one being a football tournament where UTC played against Homeserve. We invited families and friends to join us on those occasions. It all depends on what you do as a department, if you make the suggestion then you'll be more likely to do something, it definitely does increase the team bond.