Market Analyst Review

I am currently on placement at Kantar and enjoying the daily work. Alongside the responsibility you are initially entrusted with, you have the chance to attend many social events. The various teams and the company as a whole are always arranging socials to ensure everyone is able to find time to relax and enjoy working here.

I have felt valued by my colleagues from the start of the placement. They made it clear initially that its encouraged to ask questions and all viewpoints are treated equally. They ensure you are able to pursue projects that interest you and if you want to get involved in anything outside your daily role it is usually welcomed.

The management and supervisors have been very helpful and allowed me to develop my skills while in the role and after expressing interest in other areas have encouraged me to take on more responsibility. You are assigned two ex-placement, graduates as mentors, as well as a team of senior members and are provided constant support once within your smaller client teams.

I feel there is a great balance of work within the office. Some days you will be very busy and others less busy. However, it is common on the less busy days that team members will provide resource to each other and the team works really well to ensure everyone has a fair workload.

Within my placement I have already been given more responsibility than I expected. This has been great for me as I wanted to ensure I made the most of my placement year. However, it is a role in which you almost dictate how much responsibility you want to take on. It is also possible to just complete the simpler daily tasks until you feel you are ready to take on more responsibility.

So far the skills and training have been invaluable. It would agree with a previous review, that you do not have to want to work within the company forever to make the most of this placement. The workplace experience and responsibility has developed my skill set greatly. I feel a lot of the training I have received is easily transferable to other sectors.

The atmosphere around the office is great. The teams work well together and no one is made to feel excluded. The young office definitely results in a vibrant and friendly community. Senior members of the team are not overpowering and there are loads of social events throughout the year to ensure a healthy environment.

The organisation of the placement scheme is amazing. It has definitely taken a few years of placements to get to this point, but that experience of working with placement students is clear. When I started there is an overlap period with previous placement students to provide support and various meetings are scheduled by different support figures throughout the year to ensure you are on track and have a support network. The company has had a lot of new starters throughout the summer with placement students and graduates joining team and so I found the integration very smooth.

There was a lot of initial training and development and if you feel anything has been missed or you wish to go over something then the teams will be more than happy to help or you are welcome to join graduates a few weeks into your placement with their training. On top of this, there are plenty of other training schemes available which are made clear and some of my team members have took part in them and had positive feedback.

The company are very supportive with the placement students and the year is not so much a test for future employment but training for it. They provide loads of help and support to ensure you feel comfortable and would want to work here in the future. Following an end of year assessment placements are offered a place on the graduate scheme. The company has been a great place to work so far and I have noticed plenty of ex-placement students return for future employment.

The previous year of placement students had a very social group. This may be associated with the fact a group of them lived in a shared house. The current group are all friendly and we interact around the office and in breaks but outside of work socialising with team members is more common. It isn't too noticeable though as even the wider teams are very young and sociable.

The cost of living is as expected in London (expensive). Socialising isn't cheap but you will find people recommend places to go and there are loads of options in London anywhere so you can find anything to cater to what you like to do. In addition, a lot of the company organised social events are paid for and so you have a lot of opportunities to socialise affordably with work.

The area around the office in Hanger Lane is not buzzing with nightlife. It pretty much consists of one pub for nightlife. However, being in zone 3 on the central line means you can very easily get to any nightlife within 20-30 minutes. Obviously, being located in London there are options for everyone with nightlife events.

There are loads of activities to get involved in outside of work. You have an allowance of days to attend charity work, as well as organised charity events. There are also work organised social activities and days out. I am still on placement and have already had a work activity or event every 2 weeks or so.