Undergraduate Trainee Review

I enjoyed my placement a lot, I found myself wanting to come to wok and give my best for the company in order to help it grow and develop into a company that customers trusted and wanted to purchase from. I enjoyed working with the people in my department which also made the experience a lot more enjoyable as they also became my friends at the same time as being my colleagues, I had some common interests with people from my department so conversation was really easy and we always had some common ground.

I was always busy and this meant constant interaction with my colleagues, therefore I would receive a "well done" every now and again and there was also the added benefit of the companies extra mile nomination scheme. This meant that colleagues could nominate each other if they had gone above their normal duties, which I received on one occasion. Colleagues would also ask for help with certain things which showed that they valued me and the work that I had previously done for them, or indeed what they had heard from other people who I have completed work for.

I felt like I was given a lot of support and guidance as there was quite a lot to learn so for the first couple of months it was a case of learning something new every day so this meant I was constantly asking questions and being given an answer almost instantly. If I ever had any problems with the work I was doing there was always somebody there to lend a helping hand and to assist me in what I was doing.

I would say that I was very busy, I had numerous different projects going on which meant when maybe one project was waiting for other people to e-mail back responses I always had something else to do. The fact that I was doing jobs for a number of people in the department also added to the larger projects I was doing at the same time which meant I was busy all day everyday. My day would also be taken up by replying to emails from people who had enquiries about things that were happening at their dealerships and who would require information from me or people in my department.

I was responsible for some large projects and felt heavily involved in other colleagues work. I felt like I was responsible for a lot of important work and that if I didn't keep on top of what I was given then it would result in the projects being delayed and would then result in the company being fined for being late with issues with the dealerships and not conforming to standards. On a daily basis I could be placing orders for huge amounts and this also made me feel like my responsibility was high.

I can now relate a lot of what I have learnt in my first two years at University back to my year with Pendragon. I also believe that I have developed a lot of my skills, including computer skills and becoming more familiar with programmes such as excel and word, learning more things on these programs as the year progressed which I can now take back to University which will hopefully enable me to save time when processing work. I also developed my teamwork skills a lot and I feel that this has made me a better part of teams and will hopefully be something that will be evident in the groups I am with when I go back to University.

The general atmosphere in the office was a productive one, but there was also general conversation going on. This meant that it was easy to work and it was never uncomfortable. In order for it to be uncomfortable then it would have had to be quiet, it was definitely not that, there were always people on the phone. The phones would ring all day and that is what most of the office would sound like. Another overriding feature of the atmosphere in the office was one of happiness, people always had a smile on their faces and they always seemed busy at the same time so it seemed like they had a great balance between relationships with their colleagues and getting on with their work in order to meet their deadlines.

I would say that the work placement was set up ok, we started just after the cut off for that months pay and so didn't get paid for a month and a half (however there was the facility to get some money from the company) but it would have been easier if we had started sooner, I know this is something they have learned from and wouldn't do it again. It was a bit disorganised as well with 3 people starting mid way through the month and then 3 people starting a couple of weeks later at the end of the month, this was because some people could start sooner than others.

There was no formal personal training and development and as a result there was no feeling of investment in me. I did feel like the department invested time in me but in the broader scheme of things, nothing was really offered to me in specific areas such as coaching.

Currently there is a graduate scheme but there is no head office scheme which is something that I would want to do. However I have a feeling that I would like to work for the company again and if there was the opportunity to come back and just be employed at head office then this is something I would be interested in. I feel like there isn't much scope for promotion within the company and that if I was employed on a graduate head office scheme there wouldn't be much opportunity to go further up the company ladder.

The social scene with the other undergraduates was good, we would speak on a regular basis and would go out in order to get to know each other better.

The cost of living was really cheap, I rented a 1 bedroom house and it cost me £375 a month, travel to work was only 20 minutes on the bus and would cost me £2.60 a day, so nothing at all really. Nottingham was quite a cheap place to live in general I think, there were loads of things to do in Nottingham, it was quite busy and featured a lot of shops and restaurants with good travel links.

I lived about 60 minutes on the bus away from the centre of Nottingham where the nightlife was. Where I lived there was no nightlife at all.

There were no opportunities to get involved with activities outside of work that I found.