Placement Student Review

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at NATS. It is a great company to work for and it is an extremely exciting industry to be a part of. My placement provided me with a wide variety of opportunities and life experiences. There is a diverse range of projects and activities you can get involved with. Typically the day job is in an office which can get boring on quieter days when you have no meetings.

The people at NATS are what make it the fantastic workplace that it is. My colleagues were always happy to help me and spend time explaining things to me. Plenty of support and guidance was available to me whenever I needed it. Internal training sessions also helped. Most people do not care about your title as a "placement student", they simply see you as equal and like any other employee at NATS. However, I felt that some managers valued me less than others and I didn't like this. I suppose with any large company that you work for, there's always going to be some senior figures who see themselves as superior to everyone else. As a placement student, you have to appreciate that you are starting at the bottom of the food chain and working your way up, however, there is no reason why people shouldn't respect you and treat you equally. I felt this mentality was not adopted by all managers within NATS.

I had 2 different managers during my 12 month placement. The first manager I had was always happy to help and consistently made sure they spent 1:1 time with me to check how I was getting on. One of the first things they did was introduce me to as many people as possible which really helped me to develop my business network, as well as making me feel more comfortable and welcome in the company. I felt like they were a genuine friend as well as a superb manager. They always went above and beyond for me and I cannot recommend them highly enough. I would say they were the best manager I have ever had in my professional working career and I would rate them a 10 out of 10 as a manager. For my second manager I cannot say the same. From the very first meeting I had with them, they showed up over 30 minutes late, with no prior warning and no apology. We are all human at the end of the day, things happen and priorities change. Naturally, we may be late to the odd meeting/event. However, this became a regular occurrence which in my eyes set a poor example as a manager. I was given very little support or guidance from them. I felt that their behaviour was due to a combination of poor organizational skills on their behalf and perhaps even a lack of respect towards me as a placement student.

Ultimately, you are as busy as you make yourself. There is plenty of work to be getting on with within NATS. Some days I was absolutely snowed under and I had a million different things to do, lots of meetings to attend and lots of deadlines to meet. Some days were quieter and if I was on top of my workload then I didn't have much to do.

I was happy and pleasantly surprised with the amount of responsibility I was given as a placement student at NATS. I was solely responsible for managing a number of my own projects and I felt that I was making a positive impact to the company. There were a number of projects which were given specifically to the placement students in order to provide us with experience managing a project from start to finish. This also included handling the finances behind the project.

Without a doubt, the skills I developed and the lessons I have learned during my placement will stand me in a strong position for finishing my degree and following my future career path. Some of the skills I would say you can develop through NATS are: - Presentation skills - Teamwork skills - Communication skills - Project Management - Leadership skills - Multi-tasking - Stakeholder Engagement - Negotiation skills - Business Management skills - Commercial Awareness - Critical thinking skills - Confidence I also completed external training which the company paid for. I successfully obtained my Lean Six Sigma Green Belt qualification and my ITIL Foundation Certificate.

I was fortunate enough to work in both the NATS Swanwick Centre and the NATS Corporate Technical Centre. The Swanwick centre was a nice and lively environment with colleagues constantly engaged in meetings and conversations. I would highly recommend Swanwick as a place to work. The CTC was much quieter and people generally spend a lot of time sat at their desks in isolation, not engaged in conversations. The atmosphere felt less happy and less energetic in comparison with Swanwick. Parking at the CTC was also an issue as there are not enough spaces for the number of employees.

I thought the placement was extremely well set up and I can't think of any improvements. There were plenty of opportunities and events to get involved with. Regular fortnightly meetings for the placement students also provided a new guest speaker each time which was interesting and helped to develop our business network. The Early Careers scheme at NATS is a credit to the people who organize it.

The company paid for various external training courses from which I gained a number of qualifications. These qualifications will certainly help to boost my CV and career prospects. The company also invests a lot of time and money hosting internal training sessions which are not to be undervalued. I found these really interesting and really helpful.

It is a fantastic organization to work for and it is an exciting industry to be a part of. There's a wide range of job opportunities available and they are actively looking to employ younger staff. Future employment prospects for placement students, apprentices and Direct Entry Graduate's are promising within NATS.

Social events were held once a month between all of the apprentices, placement students and DEG's. These events were always fun but attendance levels were not always very high. Social events between older work colleagues were infrequent but always a good laugh and it provided a nice opportunity to get to know people outside of work, on a more personal level.

Not too expensive but certainly more expensive than university life.

The nightlife was not as good as the nightlife I experienced during my time at University.

There were loads of opportunities, as I have already mentioned.