Intern Analyst Review

I enjoyed the challenge of the work given to me, as the project I was given to work on was interesting and was actually of value to the department and the company as a whole, so this part of the role was fulfilling. The department revolves around quantitative data analysis, however, which is not something I was used to, and is not something i naturally enjoy.

From the offset we were treated as new analysts in the department, rather than simply interns. A lot of the centrally organised events were at points very condescending, however, and I felt at the end I had far stronger relationships with people of all levels in my department, rather than fellow interns in other departments, even if they're in the same position.

My manager declared he was leaving to take up a new role at another company a the end of my first week, and I was left in limbo in terms of who was supervising me for the first two weeks of my internship. Once this was sorted, however, all my managers gave great support and guidance.

As my internship was completely project based, I always had work to be getting on with and it was very much up to me to decide how hard I pushed on. At points, however, the work was very slow due to a lack of direction, and it would have been nice to have a variety of tasks to work on at these points.

We were given full responsibility of a project from the offset, and it was up to us to decide how we wanted to pursue it. The projects were obviously necessary for the progression of work within the department, which motivated us to work hard towards them. I have had to hand my project over to a new analyst at the end of my internship.

Having not had any technical skills upon arrival, I can now use SQL competently, and my use of the analysis functions within Excel has also improved massively. In terms of soft skills, I have had the opportunity to present in front of audiences up to 50 people as well as take part in regular team and personal development meetings and workshops through activities such as Golden Hour.

The atmosphere was very friendly, and I felt I could speak to any team in Transformation for help on any issue. The department also runs events such as supply chain Football and Badminton, which along with Payday drinks and regular leaving and celebration events, adds a real social aspect to the department.

Within our department, the internship was organised very well, and we were given a clear project to work towards from the offset, through which we picked up the carious technical and soft skills necessary for the role. The centrally organised events, however, were far less useful, and sometimes felt like they hadn't really been targeted correctly.

Our managers were very keen on promoting our personal development, and spent a substantial amount of time making sure we were comfortable with our direction and progress. We were also encouraged to set personal goals for what we wanted to get out of the internship at the beginning, which our teams really tried to help us achieve.

As a company and a way of working, Tesco is definitely appealing as a graduate destination for me. The work I was doing during my internship was very stimulating and incredibly interesting, but I am unsure whether I would want to do such quantitatively focused work full time, but I definitely became more invested in the type of work over the course of internship.

As Supply Chain Interns, we were very close by the end of the internship due to the shared nature of our work, and this certainly made the job more enjoyable. Struggled to relate to interns from other departments as they seemed to have different objectives for their time interning and were not wholly interested in widening their network.

I continued to live in my university accommodation in London and commute, which was still relatively expensive (£8.80 a day) .

There was no local nightlife to speak of

There were plenty of opportunities to get involved in sports run by Tesco, but there wasn't anything offered completely outside work.