Marketing Undergraduate Review

I have thoroughly enjoyed my placement year at Pfizer. I have been provided several opportunities to participate in group activities and also to co-ordinate projects myself. The environment at Pfizer is very welcoming and they really invest in your development over the year.

I have felt extremely valued over my year at Pfizer. As soon as I started I was welcomed into my team and wider department. I have been provided many opportunities to be responsible for key initiatives within our team and have always felt valued as a core member of our brand team. This is especially true towards the end of my placement, as I have learnt so much over my year at Pfizer.

I have been very lucky and have always had an extremely supportive manager. We usually have a formal 1:1 every two weeks, but because we sit together in the office we will touch base several times a day on the different projects we are both working on. If I wanted to have formal catch ups more frequently that would definitely not be a problem. I have also been offered several training opportunities to further my finance, marketing and presentation skills.

The first couple of months of placement were the quietest times as I was having to complete a lot of training courses and familiarise myself with all of the processes at Pfizer. Since December, I have always been very busy during my placement and have never had search for more work to do. Particularly when you begin to take more ownership on projects, the workload definitely goes up. There have been times when it could be stressful, but I would always prefer to be doing something, especially when you see the benefits and outcomes of successful projects.

I have been given lots of responsibility during my placement year- probably more than I was expecting. Personally I have really valued this because when your manager trusts you with a project or activity it really helps to build your confidence. I also found that I learnt the most when I was involved in new, independent projects as you have opportunities to meet new people in the business and really learn the ways of the company. I always had the support of my manager though, and we regularly caught up on the different projects I was working on.

I have been very fortunate to receive lots of opportunities for training and development. Pfizer run a full training programme for the undergraduates in the first few weeks, and this continued for me with presentation skills, team management, finance skills, marketing foundation courses and many more. There are regular training opportunities throughout the year for the whole company and you are often encouraged to sign up to as many of these as you can.

There is a really great atmosphere at the head office in Walton Oaks. The office seats around 800 people and so there is usually a buzz (except on Fridays when a lot of people work from home- including the undergraduates). It is also nice that some people from most departments are based t Walton Oaks so you can always catch up with people face to face and grab a coffee. Everyone is extremely friendly.

When we initially joined the team we had a two week on-boarding period, with scheduled talks and training. After this, there were a few essential trainings scheduled for us, but a lot of the co-ordination came from our managers. I was very lucky as my team organised my placement extremely well and I always had lots of work to do. I think your manager has a big influence on how well your placement is organised.

There were lots of opportunities for me to sign up to company wide training sessions, and I never felt that I was a lower priority than full time colleagues to receive this training. My manger also invested a lot of time helping to upskill me around marketing strategy as I had never been in a marketing role before.

The Graduate Scheme run by Pfizer is an extremely appealing opportunity. It allows you to have a year of marketing and a year of sales experience which is invaluable for someone looking to return to the commercial side of the business. Currently the graduate scheme is only available to students who did a placement at Pfizer. I have had a fantastic experience on my placement and so will definitely be looking to apply to the graduate scheme!

There are over 100 placement students across the county, and around 70 at the head office at Walton Oaks. Most people move to live near the office so there is a really good community of placement students. I personally lived about 1 hour from the office already so commuted in every day, but at times this made socialising with the other placement students more difficult. There are definitely lots of opportunities to do things in the evening/at weekends though like trips into London, or to the pub.

Pfizer's head office is in Surrey which is quite an expensive area to live and socialise in. I was very fortunate as I lived about 1 hour from the office, so could commute in and live at home, but a lot of students had to rent accommodation near the office. This can be very expensive. Pfizer do offer free buses to the office from the surrounding towns though. You definitely can socialise, especially with London so close, but it can be quite expensive.

The nightlife in the surrounding towns was not that great! There are some lovely pubs near the office so if you wanted to go for casual drinks/meals after work that was lovely (especially in the summer). The bars/clubs were not very good. The Pfizer office is only about 40 minutes on the train to London though so there are opportunities for better nightlife if you are willing to travel.

There was a football and run club, co-ordinated by people at Pfizer. These were the main social clubs. There was also a gym at the office. If you wanted to get involved in volunteering activities, Pfizer offer you 5 paid volunteering days which you can use throughout your year. There are also a lot of placement students at Pfizer which creates opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work with a group of friends.