Business Admin Intern Review

Really big intern year group and lots of apprentices and graduates which makes it a really fun place to work. The 101 teams (intern projects) are really fun and you get to meet interns you wouldn't usually work with. However, some of the newer departments haven't fully established their intern programmes, which meant a slow on-boarding process and not a lot of work to start with.

My role was very technical which meant I couldn't always contribute in the way I would have liked to. However I became good at specific things like events organisation and marketing, and my colleagues really valued these skills. They also valued the women in tech and volunteering initiatives I took part in.

My manager was an individual contributor and therefore wasn't super experienced in managing people, particularly early in career. However, he was there when I needed him. My work never came from my manager which made it hard for him to give me guidance on specifics, but he acted as more of a mentor or coach was really valuable.

My schedule varied a lot throughout the year. During the summer when we first started we mostly did online training, and weren't given projects to get involved with until a couple months in. From September to Christmas I was very busy organising events etc and then again from January to June.

I single-handedly organised many events throughout my internship and took the lead on several projects. However, it took about 10 months to be given responsibility with projects that were directly related to my role involving customers. Once I found the right mentor I had the perfect amount of support and responsibility.

My internship helped me to understand what kind of career I want to go into, which is slightly unrelated to my degree. The understanding of the business and roles within it really helped me to realise what kind of company I want to work for, and the values that are important to me.

My department's early in career really grew throughout the year so there was a real community feel. It was a very supportive environment, and we were able to help each other with a variety of things. This was the same across the intern cohort. However, as a lot of my department worked from home it was hard to build relationships sometimes.

It started off really well because we had a dedicated point of contact in HR. We could go to her with any problems and she was always happy to help. However, after she left halfway through the year we felt a little lost and unsupported. The graduate application process was slightly unclear.

I took lots of exams during my year and this was really encouraged by my manager and department. They encouraged me to block out time in my schedule to revise, which I really appreciated. We often taught topics to each other and organised study sessions. You could see the value that they put into learning.

The best part of my placement were the people and the culture. I would apply to Microsoft again for these two reasons. There are a lot of graduates around the business and they are given real responsibility in their roles. The culture of learning, quality of work not quantity, and flexible working.

There are so many early in career at Microsoft which gives it a real community feel. Everyone is really supportive and its helpful to have that network across the business of different skills and knowledge. We had a social committee that organised events for everyone. The people were the best part of my placement.

Reading was quite expensive to live. A lot of people got houses together in the student area of Reading which was reasonably priced. Be sure to look early. The cost of living is high because it is so close to London, but it was perfectly live-able on the intern salary.

The social committee organised events for our intern year group which were really good. There was also a football team that a lot of people joined, and had the opportunity to go abroad with. A lot of teams would have socials outside of work, but this depended on the department.