Industrial Placement Review

I absolutely loved it - I was based in GSK Headquarters with another 100+ placement students and worked in their Worldwide Real Estate and Facilities department. I was able to get a lot of exposure to high level stakeholders, work on many different projects across multiple teams and get involved in lots of "extracurricular" opportunities (e.g. volunteering, leadership initiatives)!

All the GSK employees I interacted with, whether from my own department or others across the business, treated me as any other full time employee and encouraged me to engage with work material and put forward my views and ideas. I appreciated how open everyone was to meet and talk about their role and experiences.

My manager was brilliant in giving me lots of challenging opportunities but always being there to help support where needed. He helped introduce me to many individuals within the business (and from external companies) to help me develop my knowledge and skills. I was encouraged to get involved in everything and had the chance to attend many workshops and networking events in London which was really exciting.

Some days were jam-packed and others (e.g. through Summer) it was definitely a bit quieter. This was good though as there were ongoing courses and less-urgent work which could be completed during the quieter periods. I found my manager allowed me to be flexible in adjusting work timings based on project needs.

I was given a lot of responsibility to work on high level projects from the start of my placement. This was really valuable as I got to interact with some quite senior stakeholders but also get to play different roles within each of the projects (e.g. taking the lead on reporting vs supporting on some of the data analytics).

I've been blown away by how much I've learned and been able to experience over the past year. General skills including communication, teamwork and presentations will definitely be applicable in my degree year whilst experience in M&As, managing another employee, volunteering with charity to help kids with health challenges etc. will help significantly for future job interviews and applications. The only point of improvement would be offering some external course/training opportunities which can be recognised by other employers.

I think it depended a lot on which department and workspace you were allocated to. The area of my department was relatively quiet and serious, with little room for animated conversations or creativity. This may have been due to being quite a small department with a lot of senior management in close proximity. However, once out of the office environment the atmosphere improved significantly! I would also note that other areas within the office were much more fun, lively and encouraging of collaboration and teamwork.

From my first day of onboarding with past placement students to now I've found the placement to be incredibly well organised. My manager was very keen to receive and implement changes based on my feedback throughout which was great - but honestly there really wasn't a lot I would have changed!

I loved that GSK offers so many different options for development and training. From personal LinkedIn learning to groups focused on leadership, there was something for everyone once you had a search and found out it existed! My manager also agreed to fund various real estate specific workshops and learning days to help me develop and grow!

I think it's a wonderful company and I've packed a lot of learning into the past 12 months. I think for a graduate role it would be more beneficial to work for me to work elsewhere, in order to gain new skills and experience which I could bring back to GSK in the future. This way I would feel as though I'm bringing more value to the company as a whole.

GSK has a placement student group led by elected representatives to provide sport, social, development and charity opportunities. I think this was helpful for the beginning of placement to get to know different students across other departments outside of your own e.g. through rounders games, pub quizzes, charity cake stalls.

I lived within walking distance from GSK which was reasonably cheap for renting however this definitely depended on the type of house and location you are after, as some of my friends paid significantly higher rents. There are a couple of decent pubs for after work but not a lot of other options and generally I would travel more centrally for social activities.

Yes definitely! I regularly attended GSK gym classes, joined a development for leadership group, went to various leadership initiatives and speaker series, volunteered for 5 days with Over the Wall (a charity for kids with serious health challenges), raised funds for Save the Children charity with cake stalls, had lunches and networking drink events etc.