Employee Engagement Co-ordinator Review

The whole year was a great experience and highly enjoyable throughout.

You are placed into a team within the company who you work directly alongside and you are a valued member of this team from day 1.

My manager was great and extremely helpful and supportive all year. I always felt like I was able to ask any questions or double check things I didn't understand knowing that she would be happy to help.

It varied and there would sometimes be periods of heavy workloads where I had to learn to manage and prioritise my time, and other times it would be quite quiet. I never didn't have something to do, as during quieter times I would just do tasks that were less urgent. Also, if you were ever not busy people would be fine with you asking for additional work/projects!

I was given responsibility running a number of programmes, but this was alongside my manager so we would often run through things together to ensure I was always on the correct track etc and we would review these together. HP is such a large company and there are employees based all over the country, so in my case I was in a different office to my manager, so would touch base with her once or twice a week, or I could contact her more if I needed, but the rest of the time it would be my responsibility to get on with work myself.

The skills I have developed the most this year are definitely, time and project management, communication and confidence. These are all transferable skills that I can take forward with me back into University and beyond that will help me greatly when I am applying for graduate jobs and developing my future career.

It was quite mixed- I think it depends what team you're in. If all your team are based in the same office (Bracknell) then you will sit with them, and could have a completely different experience to someone who 'hot desks'. I 'hot desked' meaning that as the majority of my team weren't here a lot of the time, I sat in a non designated desk area. Other interns are also in this situation, so you all tend to sit together in one same area, which is good! Other than this, it is a standard. formal office environment and everyone is very friendly and chatty.

Extremely well organized. You have your first month as a 'handover' period, where you shadow the current intern in your position as they transfer all the work to you and ensure you get to grips with it all within this first month. Many also produce a 'handover document' so that even when the current intern has left, you have this document to refer to until you fully pick up how to do everything.

Everyone is very encouraging of your personal development and any additional training you may want on top of your job- if you are wanting to and voice this to people. People are happy to give you additional help as much as they can if you ask for it.

Very appealing-they have a good sales grad scheme and other opportunities that you could come back to without using a grad scheme. Everyone is very welcoming and as soon as someone hears you are an intern they are keen to know if you are going to come back in the future. There are internal talks ran from current grads about the scheme and the process to come back if you are looking to, and it is easy to talk to grads and ex grads about their experiences and what advice they would give you about coming back.

The social scene amongst interns is fantastic. There is about 70/80 per year, and in your first month, if you are moving away from home for your placement you have the option to live in Reading University Halls of Residence all together. This a great month to get to know everyone, and the area and find out who you want to live with and find a house to live in. The first month is also extremely social with lots of socials and bar crawls etc with both the current interns that you are replacing, and everyone replacing them. This social side then continued in my year, although we didn't go out as much during the week as we did in the first month, as you all tend to live in houses very close together most people will go out all together at the weekend.

Standard- not too expensive but not cheap. Although the office is in Bracknell, all interns lived in Reading, which is about a 30/40 minute drive away, as there is very little happening in Bracknell and I don't think it would be a fun place to live! So it is worth the commute to live in Reading. Reading is a student town as well anyway so you have many student houses/estate agents to choose from, and rent is often between £300-400 plus bills. Nights out in the week are cheaper as they are student nights, and weekend nights are just typical weekend prices.

Nightlife in Reading is very lively and good as it is a student town. Weeknights tended to be busier as students would mostly go out then (especially Thursday nights were a good one) but weekends were also always a good night out.

This would be dependent on the team you were in- some would socialize a lot and others that may be based out of different locations may not.