HR Operations and Talent Acquisition Undergraduate Review

I loved my 12 month placement at Pfizer as I had the opportunity to work in 2 teams, the HR Operations Team and the Talent Acquisition Team, giving me a fully rounded experience of HR in a large corporation. I was responsible for many projects during my placement year including running assessment centres, running the virtual work experience programme and graduate scheme. I feel as though I have developed many transferrable skills during my time at Pfizer which will definitely help me in my future studies and career.

I felt valued by my colleagues right from the very start. I was worried, before starting my placement, that I would be asked to do monotonous tasks as I was the undergraduate in the team however, was delighted to find that this was not the case. I really felt like a valued team member and was given a lot of responsibility from my very first day at Pfizer. Despite being the undergraduate in the team, I was given access to all of the relevant Pfizer systems and trusted with extremely confidential information.

My manager was exceptional. We had a meeting every Monday and every Friday and I felt like I could go to my manager about anything. She was always willing to help me and support my own personal growth. My manager gave me lots of responsibility but would regularly check up with me to ensure I could manage my workload. I feel as though I have learnt so much from my manager which will be extremely useful in my studies and in my future career.

I had the perfect balance of workload during my placement. During the work experience programme, I had a lot on all the time but it wasn't anything I couldn't manage. It also helped that my manager was so supportive. There were days when I didn't have a lot to do however, once I asked for work to be distributed to me, it was sent my way. I was able to help out with the Ireland interviews which was very interesting.

I was given a lot of responsibility during my placement. I loved this as I felt trusted and it made me want to do the work to the best possible standard. During the work experience programme, I was responsible for liaising with the students, training them on how to use Webex, evenly splitting them into groups based on their preferences, sending all relevant forms and collecting these, tracking and reviewing applications, planning the skills sessions and leading these, sending all documents to students for the following day, running ice breaker activities, supervising sessions and many more.

I genuinely feel as though I have developed skills for life during my placement year at Pfizer. I can see a significant difference in my organisation skills, my time management skills, my self confidence and my planning along with many other skills. I will create folders in my outlook account to stay organised along with writing to do lists, setting reminders on outlook, setting up email signatures for repetitive emails, creating trackers to keep myself organised, etc once returning back to university and in my future career.

I really enjoyed the atmosphere in our office as I got along with most people in the team. We would always do a quiz on a Friday which I really enjoyed. We would also all have conversations whilst working which made work life quite fun. You were able to get up and go for a walk, go to the gym, do yoga or meditate as a form of energy management which created a relaxed atmosphere.

The placement was very well organised. I spent 6 months in the Operations team which involved completing references, sending out contracts, dealing with general queries and running induction once a month. I then moved over to the TA team to complete the remaining 6 months of my placement which involved running assessment centres, the work experience programme and the graduate assessment centres. This really gave me a fully rounded taste of HR and so I think that the placement was organised well.

The company allowed me to get involved in a number of different projects during my time at Pfizer. I was involved in a diversity project regarding the gender pay gap which was so interesting, a dyslexia project, etc. I received all of the necessary training needed to perform my day to day tasks. I also had a great team who would train me when it came to completing tasks that I had never done before.

I would definitely consider Pfizer as an option in the future. I loved Pfizer's culture and the values (courage, excellence, equity and joy) really resonated with myself and so I would definitely consider applying to Pfizer in the future. I also really loved the team that I worked with and I think that this is such an important factor when deciding on a job. The only thing stopping me from going back is the distance from home.

I really enjoyed the social scene at Pfizer. We would all go for lunch at around 12pm every day and sit on a table together and have a catch up. We all used to plan stuff to do together at the weekend which I really enjoyed. In terms of social scene with colleagues, that was also great too. I went to an escape room and for a few meals with my colleagues, which I really enjoyed.

The cost was expensive. It would cost us around £5 for a pint which was a shock coming from Leeds university. The housing prices are also very expensive, our rent was £625 pp per month which didn't include bills. However, the train to London from Regiate was relatively cheap and so we went to London most weekends which was really fun (expensive though obviously). It was definitely worth paying the amount we did for the experience we had.

The nightlife was not great. We would travel from Reigate to Epsom (as most of the undergrads lived there) which would take around 30 mins to go to a club called "Fever". The club wasn't great but we all still seemed to have fun every time we went. We would all go to someone's house before hand and so i would say that that was the best part of the night. However, occasionally we would get the train to London and go on a night out there, which was amazing!

There were a number of opportunities to get involved in outside of work if you wanted to. when I first joined Pfizer we had Joyfest which was on a Sunday. It was one of the highlights of my placement! Pfizer hired loads of fairground rides and food vans and it was all free. In addition to that there was an event called "Superheros" which you could volunteer to help out at, which looked like great fun.