Sales and Marketing Intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my placement year at Atos and would recommend the scheme to future students. The culture is incredibly welcoming and interns and graduates receive real responsibility from day one which is great for gaining valuable experience as a placement student, and highlights the potential for your career development post-placement if you decided to apply for a graduate scheme.

Atos has a very open, informal culture which meant that there was a great community feel and I felt valued by colleagues of varying seniority throughout my placement. As an intern I felt valued as someone trusted to take on real responsibility and where I was willing to work hard, this was rewarded with recognition and respect.

Throughout my placement year, I was given a lot of support from my management to ensure that firstly I made the most of my experience and was able to explore my own personal development plan, and secondly that I was never bored or left with nothing to do. To an extent, your placement year is what you make of it though so some guidance has to come from yourself to network and find opportunities in order to get involved with projects that you're interested in.

I got involved in numerous different projects throughout my placement so I was incredibly busy on a daily basis, sometimes working long hours to meet deadlines. My manager, however, was supportive of helping me to find a balance between different projects I was working on so I could manage a busy workload that was doable within my hours.

On certain projects I was given a high level of responsibility during my placement to the extent that I was able to lead on projects with the guidance of senior colleagues if needed. This was really good to help with my own career development and I enjoyed being able to shape projects in my own direction. The level of responsibility was however dependent on my own initiative in seeking out opportunities to show my skills to lead on a project and if I had chosen to take little responsibility throughout my year then I could've gotten away with just helping out.

The placement year was invaluable in helping me develop skills that will be useful for my studies and beyond. I had never worked in a corporate environment before, in a full-time job role, so the placement helped me to understand a workplace and develop the necessary skills to do well in my job role. I also received training throughout my placement on various areas of business related to my role, relating to teamworking, leadership etc. so I feel like I have learnt a lot.

Personally, I think the office culture is a great environment for young people starting in their career. In the office itself, the environment was informal and all levels of the business interact and socialise on a daily basis, which was good both for building a network, gaining exposure in the business and settling in to the role. As interns, we were also part of a community of graduates, interns and apprentices which meant that there were lots of social events outside of work to build our networks and have fun.

The placement was very well organised once I started with an initial induction programme, monthly check ins with a supervisor, 3 monthly reviews and a real role within the business that was though out and had responsibilities associated with it. I did only find out my specific placement role in the last few weeks prior to starting my placement and the interview process was quite lengthy with patchy communication throughout the process so the pre-placement set up was not as good as the actual placement experience.

As a group of interns in the business the company invested in a 3 day residential training trip and a full day training session at a separate time during the year. My management team also invested their time in helping me to build a personal development plan and reviewed this throughout the year with me to ensure that I was achieving the goals that I had set for myself.

I think if you work hard and demonstrate your skills throughout your placement year then the employment prospects within the organisation are quite good. A number of graduates in the business had previously been interns and throughout my year, I spoke with the supervisors about different graduate positions available should I wish to come back, so the company is definitely invested in bringing placement students back into their graduate schemes if the interns are a good fit.

The social scene with other placement students, graduates and wider teams in the business was really good. We had a committee set up to organise social events for graduates, interns and apprentices in the business, as well as the social plans we made amongst ourselves. Throughout my year I was also lucky to be invited to a number of corporate events such as charity dinners where I was able to socialise with colleagues.

I lived in London during my placement so the cost of living was high as you would expect. Socialising after work was also considerable more expensive than what I was used to in student bars. I did however make the most of student perks and company benefits such as discount on gym memberships, buying a student oystercard etc. which helped me to save some money.

Immediately in the vincity of the area near the office, the nightlife wasn't amazing but there were many pubs and bars nearby that were always busy after work. Living in London, we quite often socialised in other areas nearby, and the office was situated near to Covent Garden so it was never too far to get to a more lively area.

During my placement year I got involved in many activities outside of work such as taking part in the Three Peaks Challenge, a charity run, charity dinners, pub quizzes etc. As an intern there are definitely opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work if you wish to, especially with a strong charity focus in the business as there are always charity events going on that you can get involved in.