HR Planning & Steering Intern Review

Great experience, I feel like I've grown massively during the course of my internship with the BMW Group at the MINI Plant in Oxford. I feel very well equipped to tackle the workplace when my university degree concludes, and am very happy to know which area of business I would like to work in in the future, which is HR.

My colleagues have been extremely welcoming to me, which has been a great help when acclimatising and settling in to my role. I feel comfortable asking them for help, which is very beneficial as they are all very good at their jobs. Their expertise has helped me grow and improve as a HR professional.

My managers have also been very good to me. I have monthly meetings with the manager of my department, where he updates me on my progress, and also asks me how I'm feeling about my placement; both of these things are extremely important in the workplace, in my opinion, especially for an intern.

As with any job, there are periods where you're not doing quite as much, particularly just after starting. However, as the placement went on, I gradually took up more and more responsibilities and projects, which have kept me busy enough! Not so busy that I feel overwhelmed, but busy enough to be satisfied with my work!

One of the great things about my role is the amount of responsibility I have been given. I am trusted to carry out my roles to a good standard, and the responsibility I have been given on projects has been a particular highlight, as these will have a really big impact on the company.

As stated previously, I feel I have learned so much on my placement at BMW. I believe the concepts I have explored will aid me a great deal in the rest of my studies, and even more so beyond this, as I now have experience of what a workplace is actually like.

I have enjoyed the atmosphere in my office very much. There is a very diverse culture, with almost half of the people in the office being German. Everyone is extremely friendly, and while everyone is there to do a job, they are also aware that we all have a life outside of the workplace too!

This is one of the areas I believe the internship could be improved. While the organisation of the placement seems to have improved form what I heard about last year, there were still people (myself included) who did not have logins, emails, workwear etc available for them on their first day. This needs to improve.

The company have been very supportive in the training and development of interns. As part of my role in overseeing the entire internship, I have managed to organise two training platforms for interns (an internal digital hub, and alison.com), which is a really good thing to do if there is a spare half hour / hour or so.

This is another area where the company should improve. I have heard figures of around 4% (roughly) of interns end up gaining employment with the company in the future. I came here with the intention of trying to get a job, or get on the grad scheme, however this seems unlikely.

The social scene is very good amongst interns. There are weekly socials every Thursday evening, which are a lot of fun and really help with building relationships with the people you're working with. Even if you are in different departements, you never know when you'll need someone, so networking is really important.

Football, netball, socials