Legal intern Review

For my internship I was supposed to be working on a project reviewing the employment contracts across Nestle and improving them. Unfortunately, my line manager was off sick for just over two weeks towards the end of my internship. This meant that I had one project meeting right at the start, and the next scheduled meeting was cancelled as this coincided with the illness (and my line manager was leading the project). The project was effectively put on hold as a result. I asked my colleagues who were also working on the project what I could do now (as I had completed the tasks set at the initial project meeting) and they said they were not sure so I found my own tasks to do. Although this was not too bad for a short time, after a while I felt that there was no real purpose to my role. I was getting a lot of work done but I was not sure how much use the work would be. I think I would have enjoyed the placement more if the project actually properly went ahead as planned.

The people at Nestle are lovely and it was a very welcoming environment. I did not feel excluded or that I was isolated. Having said that, if my project went ahead as planned I believe that I would have felt more as a part of the team. As said, I had one project meeting so I never had another opportunity to work with my colleagues - I was very much left to my computer to find my own work to do. In this way I did not feel 'valued' by my colleagues although I was made to feel welcome.

At the start, I believed that I would have good support - my line manager seemed ready to answer my questions. As soon as my line manager was off sick however, the support dropped significantly. I asked my colleagues what I could do and one fo them did identify something of use which I did then complete. After that, they were unsure so I found my own tasks to complete. It did seem like I would ask a question, be referred to another person who would either refer me back to that first person or say that they did not know. After a while I did not see the point in asking for support. I did not have one proper follow up on the work I had done until one day before my final day of the internship when my line manager had returned and organised a catch up with me.

The start was fine - I had a clear task to complete and I found it interesting, although it is quite difficult to keep a strong attention span when you are working at a computer screen all day. When my line manager went off sick, I became bored. I wanted to do something useful and I had expressed this to a colleague - I didn't want to waste time doing pointless work. When it came to the point that no one had a task for me to do, it was very hard to motivate myself - it is not easy to get excited about a task that you have created for yourself which may or may not be useful to the project.

At the start I was set a task which was useul information for the project, so I was happy to contribute this information. Afther this, I cannot say that I was given responsibility because the project was on hold and I was finding tasks to do.

If the internship had gone as planned, I feel I would have got some good skills from this. Putting theory into practice is always beneficial and a work environment is so different to university. From the start of my internship, I was able to see how my studies would actually apply in a business context and this was quite different from what I had expected. This was beneficial. Although I dod not believe that I got a true taste of what it would be like to work at Nestle, I was able to observe my colleagues and what they did on a day to day basis which gave me a clue of what a worklife here would be like.

It was always a positive but calm atmosphere in the office. The people around me would always say hello and invite me to lunch. I felt that I could talk to any of them and that they would be willing to listen.

I think because Nestle is such a large organisation, it is harder to organise things like this. The project was for me and a few other colleagues to work on - once it was put on hold, they had other things to do whereas I as an intern did not. There was nothing put in place to deal with such a situation, and nobody knew who I should ask for help. As they were busy with their own jobs, I did feel slightly that they did not have the time to try and find something for me either. They need to have a plan in place to deal with such a situation, as to be honest it did dampen the experience for me - I felt that I was coming to work out of principle rather than actually achieving something.

This may have been different if my line manager was here and the project got going but I felt largely left to myself. I was doing work that would not be checked until a day before I left, so there was not a chance for improvement and learning.

Although I did not have the best experience, I can still see that it is a great firm. It has a collaborative and friendly atmosphere and it would be the kind of place that I would like to work. They focus not just on the work, but you as a person and make you aware of the different types of personality in the organisation - this all helps people to work productively with each other.

I met other interns whike I was there and we would meet up for lunch and outside of work. I also met up with other colleagues outside of work. Everyone is down to earth and we all need a bit of a life once we have had a long week at work!

York is not exactly cheap but at the same time it is not too dear. For me the prices were expected but it does depend on where you go - if you want to do a food shop go to Morrisons rather than Tesco!

Very busy on a Saturday night. Great atmosphere

There is definitely opportunity but you just have to talk to people and search for what you want to do. I am a dancer so I managed to find a dance class to attend every week while I was there. Nestle also handed out information about a gym we could join, but I chose to do the dance class instead.