Commercial Industrial Trainee Review

My overall experience at the company was great! I began work in one department but as I showed my worth to the company I was allowed to embark upon other 'mini' work placements during my time there. I spent 1 day a week for my final 6 months in a department that I have now decided to choose as my third year option. The people in my team were fantastic and the graduates who rotated through my team were so helpful too! I haven't given it 10 stars, purely because it is not what I want to do in the future. After taking this year out I have now decided upon a different path for my future career (All thanks to my experiences on the job), but also to work in other industries. The IT industry can be very rewarding for people who are interested in this field, but I am not.

To begin with I did not, my team wasn't very structured and we didn't even have desks in the first few months. But then there was a re-structure within the team and our roles became a lot more visible to the more senior members. We also became a bigger team but the new colleagues were less experienced in Fujitsu and in our department, so I was tasked with training, communication and other aspects that had high value within the team. From then on there have been weekly team calls, weekly 1-2-1's with my task manager and a new seating arrangement to allow us to be sat as 'one team'. I now feel very much like part of the 'family' and I will miss my team a lot when I leave.

My line manager was also the head of the department, some may have seen this as a disadvantage in regards to the free time that he had to help me. However this was an advantage due to his experience and influence with other functions of the business. He has always been there if I needed help, either an email, a monthly 1-2-1, a phone call or a meeting I have never felt like he was too serious to go to if I had a question. After the re-structure his deputy was also very contactable, I have weekly 1-2-1's with her and she is also always contactable. The support and guidance I have been given by my personal manager and other senior members within Fujitsu has been fantastic.

To begin with due to the lack of structure and lack of value of the jobs that I completed, I was not trusted enough to be really busy with enough work. However as time went on and we became more recognised within Fujitsu and our team expanded, I had a lot more work and became very busy on a daily basis. If my work did not stretch far enough to make me really busy everyday, then work such as university work and career research was seen as acceptable work to complete.

A few months in I was given a lot of responsibility, I became the sole editor of the community newsletter, I was tasked with setting up an Apprenticeship Programme which was a huge responsibility within the company, my other tasked objectives also gave me a lot of responsibility, But they also gave me a lot of opportunity to show my worth, use skills that I had learnt through my degree, but also through other jobs that I had had in the past. The responsibility I was given also gave me the boost to be in a position to make contacts with senior members of my department as well as other departments.

The whole experience of working in an international corporate company, in an office, Monday-Friday 9-5.30 for a whole year has given me more the ability to develop new and old skills in regards to communication, teamwork, professionalism, punctuality, time management and personal development. It has shown me both what I would and wouldn't like to do as a future career. It has given me the insight into new areas of business that I wasn't aware my degree could take me too. It will be the foundation for any future graduate job, that will be in the same environment, in similar situations throughout my working life. It has given me the opportunity to iron out any pre-working nerves before I set foot into a company as a graduate, I will begin my career after university with a whole years worth of professional experience over my other peers.

There was fun times, I worked with another IP and we sat with 2 or more graduates at a time, surrounded by people from the department who loved their jobs. We could all have a joke and a laugh and nobody was afraid to ask a question openly if they were stuck on something. It wasn't just one big party though, we were all there to work and that is what we did. The 'fun' wasn't 24/7 it was just when everybody needed a break. It was balanced very well within my office, the balance between fun and work, there was always more work, but it wasn't ever forced upon you and the deadlines were always manageable.

The overall placement wasn't advertised as truly as it could have been, the placement role was just a shortened version of the graduate scheme and that is not the job I performed. I was involved in aspects of the 'real' work that the graduates and managers did, but really we did a lot of the essential but less 'real' jobs. The graduate and apprenticeship schemes are so well organised at Fujitsu, they have their time with the company set out for them, with events and away weekends, group mentoring and workshops. The placement scheme isn't as well organised or thought through, there are some aspects that are really good but I only attended one workshop for them to sell the graduate scheme to me, we did participate in a corporate social responsibility challenge, but that wasn't as organised, disciplined or structured as it could have been. Many of my fellow placement students and I feel that within our departments the scheme works well and we got a lot out of this year, however, in regards to it as a whole being run from HR it is more of an opportunity for Fujitsu to climb higher in the ranks and to gain more awards. I think because we are only in the company for 12 months, they are unsure what to do with us and what efforts they should go to, to train us if we might not even return as graduates. There was little communication between HR and my line manager.

As a firm they did not invest anything in me, the only training and development I have received was from within my department. I was trained on the aspects that were relevant to my job role should I return as a graduate and also within my 'mini' placement I was trained on software and day to day appliances that I needed to complete my job. There is no incentive to return from the training that I have witnessed throughout this year in my placement. As I do not want to continue down the path of my chosen department or purely into my 'mini' placement, there was not enough invested in me to want to return to Fujitsu at all. My personal development throughout this year has been thanks t my line manager and team members, who have ensured that I get the best I can do out of my time within their department, but as a company I don't feel I have developed anything through the specific placement scheme.

They are not to me, purely because this year has shown me what I don't want to do as a future career and what industry I do not want to work in. Not due to the company both mainly due to personal preference and my personal interests. However if this was the industry you want to work in and they have a placement or graduate role within the department you are looking to work in in the future, then it is worth applying. I don't feel I have gotten the best experience from them this year, but others feel differently. From my team I would not return as I know the roles there are mostly to be filled with placement students due to the type of work needed to be completed, but within the department there is room for someone with a keen interest to progress through the company. However many of the graduates with my department do not stay after their 2 year role and some not even to finish it. From what I have witnessed and my own experiences it is very much a company where there is opportunity to progress your career if somebody else leaves or retires, which isn't very often.

There was in terms of atmosphere and willingness to go out and be social. But because many of us preferred to go home every weekend or had other commitments such as family and boyfriends there was never enough of us around to make it a good night out. That was just experience from my year, with some of us living in reading, some at home and others in London it as hard to get everyone together without somebody being out of pocket. We did attempt a few weekday nights out as Reading is a university town but for the social scene in reading and having to be up for a full day of work the next day it is just not worth it. It did not bother me as most of us were here to work and went out at the weekends back home, but if it is just a social scene you are looking for then being based in Bracknell is not the one! When we did all get together or after events or workshops in London we did all try and make it out together to catch up and socialise. I lived in a house with 4 other people who all work at Fujitsu, not all of us in the same department or same building, so it never felt like it was always about work, my house was very social, helped with the fact we had a large kitchen and lounge and a table tennis table. The social scene of the placement has been what I expected it to be.

Very much the same as university, I worked in Bracknell and so I lived in Reading, I paid the same rent as I do at uni, the same for food shopping and travel etc. Reading is a university town and so it isn't much different as your own experiences now, based on you going to university outside of London. I pay roughly £400 for all rent and bills, I food shop at Tesco or Aldi, I get the bus to the station (with a easysaver card it is £1.60 a journey), it has really close links to London (20 minutes direct to Paddington) and there are a lot of shops and restaurants, cinema, bowling etc. I worked on an industrial estate in Bracknell so I never ventured into Bracknell as a town, there is a daily bus at lunchtime from the office to the town centre and back but I never needed to use it.

In Bracknell I do not know. In Reading it is good because of the students and the student nights and deals. There are many clubs and pubs and an all night bus that dropped back off near our house. The prices were the same as at University and the expectations should be the same as well. We found that it was a better night out during the week than at the weekends but due to working everyday we didn't go out much during the week. However overall the night life is good in Reading.

Yes, I joined a netball and a rowing team, I also went to the gym with some of the other placement girls daily, we socialised outside of work, going to the cinema, dinner, shopping etc. We also had a fireworks night and several parties and table tennis tournaments, evenings where we played 'cards against humanity' and just socialised. There are a lot of opportunities outside of work in Reading, not necessarily with people from work but many clubs, teams, activities etc.