Business Operations Advisor Review

The internship has vastly met and surpassed my pre-joining expectations. I have been able to develop professional relationships with a diverse group of people. I was given full responsibility of the tasks assigned to me and I was able to make real contribution to the audit team. This drove my motivation to deliver excellence in my work and highly engage myself with the team and the client. Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed my work throughout the internship.

I thoroughly felt very much valued and appreciated by my audit team members. The tasks assigned to me where important part of the audit process and so I was able to make tangible contribution to the team.

I had my own tasks but I was under constant guidance from the team. All of my questions were welcomed and encouraged by everyone in the office. I was also assigned a buddy to raise general questions, and a people manager to guide me and oversee my progress.

I was as busy as everyone else in my audit team for most of the days. The amount of work varied from week to week. On occasions when I did not have much to do, I could complete my online training tasks, of which there were plenty to keep me busy.

I was encouraged to take on full responsibility of the relatively simpler tasks. For the more challenging ones according to my capability, I was under proper guidance from my manager or the team member who assigned the task to me.

I was able to apply knowledge from my degree course every day and many of the concepts that I have studied in university were used in many tasks. I gained a much better understanding of company financials which I will be able to use in my remaining studies. Also, I vastly improved my soft skills and knowledge of Excel which I will be able to use throughout my career.

The atmosphere is light-hearted and friendly. Your colleagues and managers will always have time spare to lend you a hand and show you how to do things. Attendance is rarely very high so it is not quite as buzzing as other offices. There is very little out-of-work activities leading to low team cohesion.

As a HP intern, the scheme is established and appreciated. The intern committee ensures there is always activities lined up. However, as a Procurment intern there is not a dedicated scheme and you are thrown together with the graduates. This is great for networking and getting support but their roles and objectives differ greatly from ours, leading to little synergy,

HP has a very developed training and development program focused around the HP University and Grow@HP which has thousands of courses available to develop your soft skills, specific department knowledge or general computer/program abilities. The intern committee arrange calls with experts and workshops.

Prospects at HP early on during your career are appealing due to the focus on personal development. There is also a lot of sideways movement available across the company which means you should be able to find a career path that suits you. If you network throughout your year and show a great work ethic then you should find yourself in a position to get on a grad scheme at the end of the year.

The intern committee ensured there were regular events scheduled throughout the year. Socials take place in Reading which doesn't have the greatest night life but the sheer number of clubs and Reading University students should balance this out. There is a substantial amount of volunteering to get involved in.

Interns are typically based in Reading. Average rent is about £320-£350 a month (plus bills). Average cost of a pint £3 - £3.50 Most interns pay around £330 mark for rent - this is for a standard university house of about 5 people

Night life occurs in Reading. Some nights are terrible, some are brilliant. It depends on what you look for in a night out. You should be able to get into the Reading Student Union which is local, cheap and was voted Best Student Union Night in the country.

There is an intern football team and 5 a side football on Mondays. There is a lot of things to get involved in around Reading but very few of these are linked to the company.