Technical Account Manager Review

I loved my work placement because of the flexibility of the program to make your placement year your own. Do not get me wrong their were responsibilities with the job title, however you could mould those what those activities looked like with your manager to provide you with the experience and skills you wanted to develop.

I was treated as an equal regularly and in some cases I was actually seen as the subject matter expert, where managers would come to me with questions on the topics.

I always received fantastic support and guidance from both of my managers. Whenever I needed help I knew I could always put 30 minutes in their diaries that week to discuss it in detail with them or if it was a quick question I was always welcome to go up to their desks whenever they weren't in meetings or calls.

To be honest it depended on the week and time of year. There were times when I felt like I could have been busier but that just meant I went out to find more tasks to pick up for the next week. One thing is definitely true, if you don't ask for more then you may not get more as your managers are always extremely busy so may not notice you need a higher workload unless you ask them for it.

I was trusted with a lot of responsibility, my manager and I were responsible for one of the KPIs for the whole department and with him already having a lot of responsibility. I ran the day to day management of said KPI and liaising with our extended team of FTEs to ensure they were supported in driving positive outcomes amongst their teams.

There are some skills you could never learn in a lecture theatre and Microsoft really pushed me to develop some of the core working life skills e.g. Networking

Relaxed yet hard working. There was so many facilities that allowed you to take a break if you needed too such as swings, a lake with walking trials as well as multiple coffee shops. The main thing was as long as you got your work done on time and to the standard promised then you were trusted to use your time as you saw fit

It was set up quite well, there were some areas where there could have been an improvement during our year. However, before the end of our placements we provided feedback as a department group and it looked like that feedback was being addressed for the next cohort of interns as they had a more structured plan for their year.

Personal development was at the forefront of all of my manager appraisals, with the leading question being what do you want to develop this quarter/year. Also, I was able to access an abundance of online training that adhered to curtained skills along with having several offsite training workshops throughout my year. Additionally, I was sent abroad to complete a professionally recognised change management course.

The graduate scheme has a lot of benefits with the focus of the scheme being to create the leaders of the future so there is again an abundance of graduate training incorporated. I would recommend looking into it prior to deciding whether to apply for the internship as you are a lot more likely to be invited onto the scheme if you have experience within the company. I look forward to starting there in September 2019.

Yes as there was around 50 of us in the Reading office there was always something going on in both the week and weekends. A big group of us always went out on the weekends and I tended to go out for dinner with friends on the internship more than I did eat at home.

It wasn't the best in terms of cost of living as you were paying London prices due to how close it was to the capital. However, with the monthly pay checks I never felt like I was struggling for money as I was always able to afford to do anything I wanted to.

The nightlife was interesting to say the least, it was definitely a town kind of nightlife. That just meant that it was more about having fun with the people you were with rather than instagraming all the cool bars and clubs you could go to. If that is something you are interested in though it was always easy to catch a 26 minute train into London Paddington and going to some of the bars in London.

Yes there are loads of societies almost that are set up. I know you can join things like the football and badminton clubs if you want to be involved with company sport, or if sport isn't your thing then there are groups like the photography club that may take your fancy.