ESSN Sales Support Review

Most satisfying were the times when I was managing mini-projects or an element of a project to 'own' and when I was out of the office at events or another office. What really let this placement down, for me, was the lack of an intern community in the central London office and when I was left 'scraping the barrel' and looking for more work.

I rarely saw members of my team nor did the majority approach me when they were around. Only a few members of my team gave me tasks and the chance to demonstrate my skills and develop trust with them.

I spent the first month of my placement being trained up by the intern I replaced, which was great! However, I wasn't paired with a mentor and the time with my manager gradually became less frequent and purposeless as I found them to be unapproachable.

During my placement my workload fluctuated. At times I was very busy running multiple projects and managing deadlines, which was challenging but exciting! Most of the time I had too little to do as did some of the other interns.

I was given a nominal level of responsibility in my core duties i.e. transcribing sales forecast figures into a template ahead of the bi-weekly team forecast calls. This increased when working on ad-hoc projects and where I was given the chance to question and suggest alternative options.

I received training on the sales process and how to use salesforce.com which will be useful should I pursue a career in sales. The training I received on using pivot tables in excel will be particularly useful in the final year of my degree.

The London office was very quiet at times, particularly on Mondays and Fridays when most of the office worked from home. When the office was busy the hot-desk system meant that you were continually surrounded by unfamiliar people.

The process for a Bracknell intern is very well organised. Based in London I had to spend a week training in Bracknell and the rest of the training period was done virtually.

I received training by the previous interns and some virtual training. I had to arrange myself to go and see the products in the demo lab when ever there was a customer meeting.

My experience in Sales at HP was very interesting yet ultimately turned out not to be an area of work or perhaps a company I want to work for.

There is a vibrant intern community based in the Bracknell head office. Being based in London I missed out on a lot of this and there was a lack of such community in London.

It goes without saying that living in London is expensive so I stayed in zone 3, invested in a travel-card and lived frugally but didn't go without, as it were.

Obviously, in central London there is an endless choice of places to go for nightlife (if that's what you're looking for) though a night out can become very pricey quite quickly!

During my time at HP there were numerous charity events and on a weekly basis there were after-work drinks.