Marketing Intern Review

I could not have wished for a better placement, I gained invaluable experience that not only developed my business capabilities but also me as a person. I thoroughly enjoyed my placement because of the responsibility and projects I was able to work on and also the fabulous people I got to work with and learn from.

Everyone was really friendly and made me feel very comfortable straight away. I was never treated as 'just' an intern, I was treated as a valued member of the organisation. Everyone was keen to get me involved in projects and give guidance where needed to ensure I got the most out of my placement.

My manager was absolutely fantastic, he ensured I was given a wide variety of interesting projects to work on and he gave me fantastic guidance throughout the year. I just hope my next manager is as wonderful as he was!

I was always busy which was great as it meant that I was never bored and I was always learning and developing. I also had bi-weekly meetings with my manager where he would find out what I had been working on and would assign me more tasks but he would always check that I was coping with the workload. My manager informed me that if I ever felt I had too much on I should talk to him and we would find a way to reduce my workload. It was great to know that I was not on my own and if I had problems I had someone who could help me.

I was surprised and ecstatic about how much responsibility I was given on my placement. I was given projects to manage e.g creation of the new website and the relaunch of brochures, on completion I felt a lot of pride as I knew I was responsible for their success and I could see how much value I was adding to the department and the business.

The time management skills I have developed over my placement year have meant that I am coping very well with the pressures of final year and am managing to keep on top of my work. The general business knowledge and experience I developed over the year is helping me understand my course material better as I am able to relate it to real life business situations. The extensive exposure to different business situations and the vast array projects I was given to work on and manage mean I feel I have developed personal skills and business skills that I will be able to use in my future career. This makes me feel much more prepared for my graduate position and I feel excited about my future in business.

The office atmosphere was very positive, employees were happy to be there and enthused with their work.

The placement set up was fabulous, this is one of the key strengths of the placement! When you arrive you were given a outline of the day to day responsibilities and the projects you would be managing. This was great as it meant you straight away felt you had a purpose and had goals to aim for. There were also bi-weekly meetings, monthly reviews and quarterly reviews which meant that you were always getting feed back and finding out what you had done well and ways you could progress further.

The scheme is called the leadership scheme as the company want you to do the intern year then the graduate scheme and the end goal is to become a future leader of the company. So the company invest heavily in the training and development of their interns and want them to have a wide variety of skills so that they have the ability to lead in the future. All interns are given 5 training days throughout the year which are on a variety of subjects from creating and giving presentations to finance training. All interns will also be given additional training where needed, for example I was given website training as one of my projects was creating the new website.

I have been offered a place on the graduate scheme.

I lived with the other interns based at my site, this added to the enjoyment of the placement year as we became great friends. The other employees at the company would also arrange social events on weekends which were thoroughly enjoyable.

My site was based in Cwmbran, South Wales. The other interns and I chose to live in Cwmbran due to the low rent prices and convenience of being 5 minutes away from work. A 3 bedroom house was £575 a month so less than £200 each a month.

There was little nightlife in Cwmbran but there were regular trains to Cardiff which was about 20 minutes away. Cardiff is a great city and has a lot of nightlife.

There were a few sporting activities such as football and running club for those training for the half marathon. People would also organise going for a few drinks after work, going to watch rugby/football matches or nights out at the weekend.