Associate Consultant Review

I have very much enjoyed my internship with Hays Recruitment. Overall it has been a fantastic experience and I couldn't recommend it enough. I feel I have grown as an individual as well as a business person by learning practical skills that I will be able to take forward throughout my working career. I have been given a real responsibility to work on and grow my very own business and I am very proud of what I have achieved over the last year.

One of the best things about my internship with Hays is that I have never really felt like an intern. I have trained as an associate consultant, with other new starters to the business and other consultants have often been surprised to find out that I was an intern. I feel respected by my colleagues in terms of the way that I have performed whilst on placement and feel that I get along very well with the people that I work with.

I have always felt supported during my internship. From day one there have been processes in place to ensure that I was trained properly and supported. I have a detailed 12 week plan to follow when I started which helped greatly. There is a great mix of very experienced consultants and new starters that are in the same position as myself that was helpful to utilise.

During my time with Hays I have ran my own business so I have always been very busy on a daily basis. Being solely responsible for the success of the business meant that I had to be busy in order to make it a successful business. I would a number of things to do day to day, including time on the phones to clients and candidates, interviewing people and spending time out of the office at my prisons, meeting the clients.

As I mentioned above, I was given the responsibility of running one of Hays' biggest contracts over the last year. This was a huge amount of responsibility for me and one that I really enjoyed. No other consultant had any knowledge about the specifics of my business that I managed to grow from scratch to having over 50 workers within the prisons. I was a fee earner because of this, and made money for Hays, contributing to the fee's for the business, office and my specialism.

I have developed a number of skills over the internship and some of these skills I will take with me through my degree and into future skills. It has been a great chance for me to put theory I have learnt over my studying in to action in a real life environment. I developed skills that I didn't think that I had, including important sales skills. I have never really seen myself as much of a salesman, but this has taught me a number of mechanisms in order to be a successful salesman. I have also had exposure to negotiation, marketing and a number of other features.

There was always a great atmosphere in the office. Due to being a sales environment, it is a very lively, vibrant place to work where high performance is encouraged at all times. As the high performance is encouraged, Hays tend to treat the employees well by having events at the end of every month and I have been a party to a number of fantastic social events.

It was clear from an early stage that Hays had had interns in prior years as I followed a very structured and informative training programme intially. I was always supported and never felt as though I wasn't serving a purpose.

As mentioned, I had a detailed 12 week plan which often meant management investing time in to sitting with me to go through specific features of working in recruitment. I was also sent to one of Hays flagship offices in Birmingham for 2 seperate 2 day training programmes where Hays put me in hotels etc. This was a fantastic experience where I learnt an awful lot in terms of recruitment and also sales.

The future employment is appealing with Hays and it is evenident to see that Hays do take on their interns for permanent employment. My manager was an intern and there are a few other consultants in the office that were also interns in the past. I think it is something that I would like to come back at another stage of my career.

Socially it has been a great experience as well. Like I said before, there was always a good atmosphere in my office and I feel that I have made friends for life whilst working here. We would often do things after work and celebrate success by all going out together at the end of every month.

I have always lived in Bristol so cannot really compare to other areas but I see it as reasonable.

Bristol has a really good nightlife. It seems to cater to all needs and seems to have everything you would need for a social scene.

There were a few opportunities to get involved with things outside of work, including nights for charity events.