CE&I Industrial Placement Review

I Work as a CE&I Industrial placement therefore my role addresses the electrical engineering aspects of the project. I have been assigned to a large Multi-Disciplinary project where I and My team are responsible for the electrical aspects of the project. On a daily basis I have to email colleagues which are on site to get information which I can use for the project such as plant specifications. I have to create reports and complete calculations.

Sellafield is quite a social company therefore to get something done you most likely have to interact with a range of people due to stake holders and to get help As a result I would say I have improved my professional communication skills. I Have also presented my findings to the team and the other disciplines on certain occasions and the exposure to presenting has definitely improved my confidence and presentation skills. Lastly I would say I have developed my engineering skills.

I was given the same amount of responsibility as any other CE&I engineer on the team. I was given tasks just like any other engineer and I was expected to complete them. Of course I was given support whenever I asked or required it but I was expected to have a seeking attitude and to be interested to learn new things. I completed official documents like other engineers and was even responsible to supervise a new starter.

I was given the amount of support and guidance I was required. I would be assigned a task by the lead engineer who would give me a good introduction and give me all the information I was required to complete the task. whenever I was stuck or misunderstood a certain aspect I was always able to ask for help if that was from the lead engineer or a graduate in my team. I was given all the support I needed.

The company culture is quite social and positive there are 9 key values (the manifesto) which the company promotes and strives to achive. Overall the atmosphere was quite relaxed and not necessarily fast paced as with nuclear you cannot rush safety checks or all of the regulatory meetings required. The company takes quite a lot of placement students approx. 10-15 who you become quite close with throughout the year. overall a positive culture and atmosphere.

I really enjoyed my placement I cannot fault my team or my colleagues or the work I was assigned and I had to work on. Due to circumstances not under my teams control In the last couple of months my project has been frozen and as such my team has been liquidated which has not been positive but other than that everything that could have went well did go well. I really have enjoyed this year and would like to come back onto the graduate scheme.

Yes

The application process is simple so do not worry. There are three main aspects of it which if you do well then you're ahead of everyone else. The first two is your CV and cover letter make sure it is up to date that it is professional and that you take it to your careers team to review as they often have good tips to improve it. Secondly the interview is competency based questions where the company just wants to see if you're a good fit, so watch YouTube about how to answer competency based questions and just be your self.