Business Program Manager Intern Review

I really liked the company culture and my team has been a great team to work with. I had the opportunity to get involved in various different initiatives both within and out of role. The role exposed you to a wide variety of projects but because of this, it was sometimes difficult to define my role.

I felt valued and respected by my colleagues. Most of the people at Microsoft treated me like a full-time employee and valued my opinions as well by asking for my perspectives.

The management team at Microsoft are great as they are also passionate about Early in Career so I never felt like I couldn't go to my manager to express that I need some support. I was always encouraged to be curious and explore new ways of doing things rather than always sticking to the status quo.

From the start of my placement, I was placed into a real job and was provided with my core priorities straight away. I would say 80% of the time was very busy for me as my role is very broad and involves the efficient running of the business. The other 20% of the time was quieter which was mostly around Christmas and summer time as that is when most people are on holiday.

I was given a lot of responsibility as I was able to own certain workloads and projects across the year. This provided me with a lot of accountability, allowing me to build my organisational, communication and leadership skills. Of course, if there ever was a point where my workload was building I had the opportunity to set expectations.

The skills I will be bringing into my final year at university will definitely be time management and organisational skills as I have learnt a lot on the job during my placement and will enable me to be more organised with my uni work.

The department I worked in was fairly quiet as people tended to be onsite with their customers or working from home. However, there's always some interns in the office so there was still a sense of community as the office atmosphere is fairly casual we sometimes sit and work together.

At the start of placement, there was a big re-organisation in the department and being a Business Manager Intern I had to familiarise myself with it very quickly to understand the business. Also, as the placement starts in July - it is a very quiet time for Microsoft where most employees will be attending a Microsoft event or on holiday so many of the interns didn't really know what to do or where to get started during the first 1-2 months. So, having a more defined onboarding/handover process would be great.

At the beginning of placement, my manager asked me to write up a Personal Development Plan so they can be clear on what skills/competencies I want to focus on. From this, I felt my desire to learn and develop certain skills were highly supported by my manager. This also includes taking some of the Microsoft certified exams and joining external clubs.

There are graduate opportunities but the roles are very limited and not every internship role has a graduate role within it. The process and communication regarding it has been fluid meaning a lot of interns have been left with uncertainty for a few months on what is happening. Many other companies tend to hire placement students into graduate roles based on their 12 months within the business, however Microsoft requires you to submit a cover letter and CV like any other external candidates with no interviews guaranteed. However, having Microsoft on your CV still holds your future employment prospects highly whether it will be with Microsoft or not.

Some interns liked to go out and socialise after work and there is also an intern socials committee. However, much of the social activities planned were the same meaning only a few interns would attend them.

Reading is pretty expensive when taking the internship salary into consideration, as it is only a bit outside London. Reading is also a highly congested area making it very time consuming to travel to and from anywhere, so many interns tend to go back to their hometowns on the weekends.

There are probably only about 2-3 clubs in Reading. Personally, none of them were my kind of scene as there wasn't a wide variety in the music they played and also seemed quite run down.

In terms of things organised specifically for interns - there weren't many. However, you are entitled up to 3 days of volunteering so I was able to volunteer for charities/initiatives I felt passionately for which was great.