Purchasing Assistant Review

I really enjoyed my placement, it exceeded all my expectations, both the role itself and the overall experience.

I felt highly valued by my colleagues, despite being the placement student this didn't impact on how I was treated. I was treated like any other employee, everyone was welcoming, helpful and respected my suggestions and work contributions.

The procurement had an open door policy, whether you wanted to speak to a fellow colleague or your manager, their door was always open whether this was for a work related issue or just a personal chat. The role itself allows you to have freedom and independence but this doesn't mean there wasn't always somewhere there to help me out and give me guidance and support.

The workload varies, you have core tasks you need to carry out on a regular basis but then also other tasks and projects that are different each day/week. Because of this some weeks would be really busy, other times there would be less to do.

As previously mentioned, the role allows you to be given a lot of responsibility, you are doing the same job as your colleagues in the department, looking after your own workload, tasks, people, queries and departments.

I believe the skills I developed and training I received will benefit me massively when going back to university and beyond. I can now link what I have been learning at university to real business experience and examples, I will have a better understanding of what I'm being taught and have developed skills such as networking, presenting and negotiating. I have also gained training in various used systems which will benefit me in my future procurement career.

The office space you work in is quite unique, I shared with one other colleague which meant at times it was quiet and calm, whilst other times it was busy and a lot going on.

I felt the placement was set up nicely, In particular the start which consisted of a 6 week handover period with the other placement student who trained me and ensured I was ready to take over the role. Throughout the placement I was assigned with various projects to work on and had a number of targets to achieve which aligned nicely with my university work.

At the start of the placement I set out a few skills I wanted to target and develop on during my placement, my supervisor ensured these were worked on and were integrated into my role so I could achieve the development I aimed for.

Unfortunately Lubrizol currently has no graduate scheme or roles, so the prospect of future employment with Lubrizol and in particular the procurement department is quite low. Despite this, if a role at Lubrizol came open in the future and suited my skills I would definitely think about applying as it is a great company to work for.

I commuted from home and was the only student in my department so the interaction with fellow placement students was quite minimal, although there are plenty of opportunities to interact with them, both inside and outside of work.

I commuted from home so my only cost was petrol.

Due to living and commuting from Leicester I didn't experience the nightlife, although I have been out in Derby before and I would say it's better for bars than clubs.

Lubrizol puts on a range of activities to get involved in outside of work, they had the generic stuff like 5 a side football which I got involved in, but they would also put on more unique activities that you may not have experience before such as Munro Bagging.