Marketing Programmes Review

I really loved my placement and found the more you put in the more you got out of it. It was quite a high pressured environment so sometimes the work-life balance was a miss.

I was very lucky with my team but even with the wider company everyone was always welcoming and respectful, and in turn asked you questions and valued your work.

There were many programmes in place to support you through your placement. Monthly 1 to 1 meetins with your line manager, an annual review system and constant HR support. Although the details of these programmes could be communicated better as it was sometimes confusing what was relevant to placement students rather than full time employees.

The department works on a quarterly cycle so naturally there are peaks and troughs. There is always on going projects though so you can always find something to do.

Throughout the year there was multiple opportunities to ask and earn responsibility.

Many of the skills will be skills for life, others are very specific to the motoring industry.

As it was a high pressured environment there was a need for fun and distractions. These included a team bake off competition once a week over 3 months, a sunflower competition, green month, quality month and the odd game of catch.

The placement was very well organised, there is a set corporate inductions for all students to follow and frequent HR and manager catch ups.

A lot of time and money is invested in all the placement students and this is continuous until the end of the placement. There are multiple tools for you to do this and if you feel there is an area you need to work on you can flag this to your manager as a priority and the appropriate steps and training will be put in place straight away to help you improve.

From around 20 students 2/3 will be offered a full time position on the Graduate programme.

There is a sports and social club with around 6-8 events per year which each have a high attendacne from the whole company, there are also weekly sporting activities. There is a strong student culture so it is easy to organise a night out in London, Kingston or even just Epsom. In terms of socialising with your team I was quite looking in that we did a lot but I think it depends on the nature of the department.

Southern placements will always be slightly more expensive but I found the cost of living reasonable - it is just finding the right places to go.

There are 2 clubs in Epsom but a lot of pubs so you might want to venture out. London is only 30 minutes on a train so is always an option.

There were regular Sports and Social club outings and sometimes tickets for O2 events. It is what you make of it really.