Product Assistant Review

Working for a large international travel company has provided me with a wealth of experience. I have had a fantastic year - I have met great people and learnt so much about both myself and the working world.

As a placement student at TUI you are treated and valued exactly the same as any other full time member of staff. From day one they invest so much in you and your development. TUI is a young, fun and exciting environment to work in and everyone is really friendly.

Reviews and appraisals with my manager, a HR 360 degree colleague feedback programme and an ''Insights Discovery' workshop have been invaluable to my personal development.

Like any job the work load varied at different periods. I enjoyed being busy as it meant that time flew by.

The amount of responsibility I was given as a placement at TUI far exceeded my expectations and was fantastic for my professional development, I was entrusted to make real decisions that had a real impact which forced me to be continually analytical and assertive.

I am so glad that I spent my year working for a large international company and that I was able to gain exposure to other departments and roles other than my own. The wide variety of skills I have developed and visibility to the organisation as a whole will be highly beneficial to my final year in terms of using real life examples across the modules that I have selected.

The best thing about working for TUI is that you are selling a product that people actively seek to buy. A holiday is something that people look forward to before, enjoy during and talk about after. The company vision of ‘making travel experiences special’ is reflected around the office, it is a young, fun and exciting environment to work in. Within the office there is a subsidised canteen, coffee shop, currency exchange and retail holiday shop. Employees are given concessions and have access to staff holiday deals encouraging them to experience what the customers do – a massive perk of the job.

The placement was really well organised and the placement team are continually striving to improve upon the scheme to ensure that people have the best possible experience.

As previously mentioned TUI invest so much in the personal development of the placement students.

Gaining experience in other departments allowed me to appreciate the multiple dimensions of a large organisation and gave me exposure to other available job roles. The structure of the Graduate scheme is really appealing and I would love to come back and work for the company.

We had a fantastic year both inside and outside of work. Whether it was on nights out or house Come Dine with Me events we interacted as a group really well and became great friends - TUI got the recruitment spot on!

Luton is absolutely fine for the year. Rent is really cheap and we were able to live in much nicer houses than our friends who were on placements in central London.

Luton itself isn't great but it has great train links to Harpenden, St Albans and London so we were never stuck for somewhere to go.

There were organised nights out and team events.