Case studies placement students

What is your job role?

I am just coming into my third month as a Project Manager Intern.

Tell us about your placement?

My line manager is extremely supportive and encouraging. Instead of making me do coffee rounds he has put me on multimillion-dollar projects. The main project I’m working on is for a High Street Bank, assisting the Global Programme Manager with the delivery the project in four countries (US, Mexico, UK and Hong Kong). I am responsible for managing and tracking project milestones, monitoring actual expenditure against budgeted, completing project key performance indicators (RADIO Log) to list a few.  Did I mention I use Excel daily? – Not something I anticipated but I have grown to appreciate their beauty!

Overall, the role of a Project Manager is intense and requires a high level of time management and organisational skills but at the same time, you also learn very quickly and gain a lot of key transferable skills with the opportunity to build a long list of credible contacts both internally and externally. NetApp has been fantastic in terms of developing their interns, they are currently funding my Prince2 qualification for professional Project Managers.

What advice can you give other YIB students?

My tips for the current YIB students who are looking for placements are to be bold in your choices, apply for roles that are not heard of, even if you don’t have the knowledge or experience it could open new doors to you.

P.S. Take additional training in Excel. You will thank me later! 

What is your job title and what projects are you working on?

I have `Mid Market' Sales placement based in the Paddington office of Microsoft. At the moment, I'm working on a project named `Bigger with Bing' that has the ultimate aim of helping small-medium businesses (SMBs) enter and grow in the Bing community. This is solely an intern project, meaning myself and two other interns in my team have the entire responsibility of coming up with feasible, unique ideas that will help nurture small/start-up companies in getting on-board with Bing Ads, and help them to continuously grow from here. We will then pitch this plan to our seniors in the hope to get the ball rolling. This opportunity has given us complete responsibility and trust to execute an entire project by ourselves, and we hope to be impactful not only by expanding the Bing Network, but by actually assisting small businesses to grow in their search engine marketing efforts, and help them to see financial rewards in doing so.

Another project I'm working on involves researching and detecting what's known as 'net new' (brand new) gambling agencies, with the prospect to on-board them onto the Bing Ads platform. My manager has given me the responsibility to 'own' a particular industry, and in turn develop my sales skills by helping them get kick-started with Bing.

How are you finding your placement?

I honestly love my placement, largely because of the amount of responsibility I'm given and genuine fun I'm having! It was really nerve-wracking initially applying to such a big company, but knowing the level of opportunities you can gain, I would encourage anybody to apply to do a Year in Business. I have met some truly fantastic people already, and I'm only in my fifth month (although I can't believe how fast time has gone).

To say I'm happy here is an understatement, I've made great connections, owned some fantastic projects, and I'm even off to Milan with my team this week! Of course, there will always be elements to any role that aren't as good as others, but that can be expected, and it won't be long before you're passed over another task that reminds you why it was a great idea to do a placement year. 

What is your job title and what projects have you been working on?

As a settlement analyst at E.ON, I have entered the world of an extremely complex industry – the energy industry. I am based in Coventry as part of the E.ON Climate and Renewables Asset Commercialisation team, helping to secure and maximize income from our renewable energy production sites. These include predominantly windfarms, but also other technologies such as biomass sites. E.ON procures some of its renewable energy from third party wind farms and sites. My main role as a settlement analyst entails settling the invoices for this exchange and providing transparency to said third parties. During these activities, I settle several million pounds on a monthly basis and am involved in the reporting activities linked to this process.

Since this is a job of operational, day to day nature, I actively sought for opportunities to get my hands on projects and other hands-on experience and found that initiative is always rewarded. For example I was sent to a conference in London on the use of battery technologies with several colleagues; I visited a wind farm and got insights into the work on site; I worked on an international project involving market access in Poland; I even flew to Germany and stayed for two nights in order to participate in a financial modelling course. Most importantly, I racked up many interesting projects involving multiple different parts of the business. A project I am particularly proud of is a benchmarking project I am currently leading. It involves setting up a benchmarking model analysing how appropriate the prices E.ON Climate and Renewables gets for its energy are and whether there may be some room for extra income.

All in all, I am happy to say E.ON has opened many doors for me and my future and I will not hesitate to promote and recommend E.ON undergraduate opportunities to any future placement year students. 

Where is your placement?

I currently work at the global software company VMware, based in Staines, Surrey, which luckily for me meant I could continue living at Royal Holloway for my third year while enjoying just a ten minute commute to work every day. The company is heavily focused around IT, having recently merged with Dell a few months ago.

What do you do in your placement?

My current job title is Public Sector Sales and Business Development Intern. When I first arrived at VMware, my knowledge of the company and their services was limited. My skills in IT have grown but also in networking, presenting, event planning, social media, marketing, sales, time-management

I have also realised the need to find customers, sell to them, retain them and then find more –while using all the different departments at your disposal to work together to achieve your specific goals. In a nutshell, success relies heavily on synergy and communication between the various teams within the company. And I enjoy every moment of it.

One project I've enjoyed being involved with has been working with the Partner team to create vLogs for various events over April -June. My role involves filming, editing, and directing these vLogs – a task that was challenging to begin with but again allowed me to use my creative side and has been great fun to do.

In another project I helped one of my account managers build up a historical database of past sales for all the Police and Fire Departments in the UK, attended customer meetings and organised several corporate events for these customers. I helped contribute to a successful deal made by VMware’s Public Sector team which was very satisfying.

A project that stands out for me the most would be the Million Makers Challenge, which involved working with all the Interns (25 of us) to raise over £10,000 for the Princes Trust within 6 months. We were allowed to be creative, so we decided to set up auctions, quiz nights, stalls at Christmas markets etc. all of which helped us achieve our target in good time. 

How do you find VMWare?

The culture at VMware is heavily focused at building a great work-life balance so while people have their jobs 9-5 (Mon-Fri), they are given the flexibility to wind down at times e.g. table tennis on the 3rd floor, yoga classes at lunch, golf tournaments, summer parties, international food weeks, the list goes on. So while there is work to be done, VMware wants their employees to be themselves. To expand on this, I am currently organising for my team to help refurbish houses in London for a Women's refuge in May. Once I posted the event, the number of responses was overwhelming, everyone wanted to get involved, which highlighted to me how blended in the company culture is.

What is your job title and what projects have you been working on?

It’s been 6 months since I started my placement year at Enterprise Rent-a-car at Heathrow Airport as a Management Trainee and I love every day of it. I am based just outside the airport on the retail side of the business. I have developed so much in the past few months, in a working sense but also as a student. This opportunity has taught me self-discipline and given me the determination to succeed. My role is a customer facing position, in which I get the opportunity to meet hundreds of new people every day from all over the globe and organise a hire vehicle for them. At the end of each day I participate in completing all the administrative duties for the day, this is where I have seen myself applying many of the modules from second year and how it relates to a real life business setting.

This industrial placement first appealed to me due to its wide variety of tasks and opportunity to try many different fields. Although my university course focuses on human resources I was at a loose end of what career path I wanted to follow. Here at Enterprise they have given the opportunity to try them all! From training new staff to reviewing financial figures and evaluating branch progression I feel that I will be going back to university next year with a much better understanding of all fields. Although the hours can be long I feel the placement year has not only strengthened my CV but also has prepared me for the daunting step between graduating and going into a full time job.

What is your job title and what projects have you been working on?

My main focus as a Junior Business Manager in Hong Kong for Vines and Terroirs is to work to expand and support the growth of the business. Vines and Terroirs, a specialist in French wines from Loire and Provence has been looking in recent years to expand the Hong Kong market. I feel thrilled to live in such a cosmopolitan city as Hong-Kong where there are so many opportunities of business growth.

The philosophy that my managers and myself have implemented is ‘try before you buy’ enforcing a trusting nature in a luxury sector that is run on flavors, sensation and discovery. Focusing on our target audience we organize wine tasting events in the form of dinners, parties and exhibitions. A recent example out here was the ‘French Gourmay’, exhibiting our French winemakers and wines to the local audience and public, introducing brand names and providing a good opportunity to make valuable connections.

In Hong Kong the current demand is still running mostly towards red wines (80% share of the market). Despite numerous attempts to introduce rosé wine, consumption has only seen its early days here in Asia. While in England “Rosé season” only lasts a few months throughout the very short summer time period, on the contrary, the Rosé wines can be enjoyed throughout the whole year in Hong Kong meaning the development of rosé wine is currently our major focus. As an example, we launched the first “Rosé Corner” in a trendy bar named “Azure Slash Bar” , located in one of the most popular districts in Hong-Kong.

My day-to-day work:

• Sales Assistant Manager
• Manage promotional strategy and provide marketing support to drive sales and growth in both B2B and B2C levels
• Events Assistant Manager
• Increase brand awareness (social media presence, website development, digital & print media, event sponsoring)
• Monitor market trends and research competitors’ activities to identify opportunities and key issues
• Brand design: conceptualization and design of the wine catalogue, promotional offers, flyers etc.
• Preparation of invoices and guest/Company billing
• Room inventory management, room allocation and rate yielding

What is your job title?
Marketing Assistant at the Walt Disney Company

How have you found your first few months been on your placement?
Since I have joined the Walt Disney Company in May 2015, there has not been a day without learning something new. As part of the social media & digital acquisition regional teams, I am lucky to work with Disney offices across 20 different countries. Star Wars, Marvel or Walt Disney studios represent amazing contents to work on and awesome opportunities to develop creativity. 

Doing a placement in digital marketing, in one of the most renowned multinationals, is extremely inspiring, boosting and challenging.  Surrounded by talented and dynamic digital professionals, I benefit from their great support and truly enjoy my responsibilities here.

Daily, my role is to bring digital support to the local teams for the management of their social media channels, reaching up to millions of fans.   Also, I am involved in various online advertisement campaigns, depending mainly on the new-release movies.

In a nutshell, this position offers me a great immersion in digital, with an overview of paid, owned and earned media.

I would highly recommend to every student to plan a year in business, as part of undergraduate studies. This is a great chance to boost your CV, to start building your professional network and it really helps to determine career perspectives.

My studies at Royal Holloway have helped me to develop the employability skills needed. Hard-working, self-motivation and ambition drove me to this amazing experience; and as Walt Disney said "If you can dream it, you can do it”! 

How did you find the application process?
A long process but one that is worth it in the end, it took a lot of rejections but those rejections helped me and made my applications stronger in the future. I found the most important thing to remember is to not give up if you get rejected from one or two companies (which I saw people do) it’s a learning curve and one that will help me a lot when I apply for graduate jobs.

Would you have done anything differently in your first 2 years at Royal Holloway?
I would have been less naive when applying for my first handful of jobs, I wasted applications by not realising how important my input was in the applications.

What recommendations would you make to those Year in Business students starting in their 1^st year at Royal Holloway and their 2^nd year?
Firstly your first year grades count! Secondly, it’s not an easy process and it needs a lot of preparation in advance so start applying in September not February!

What is your job title?
Talent Acquisition Associate at GSK

How have your first few months been on your placement?
Great! I feel like a real part of the team and have learnt so much, I'm not treated like an intern I am given real responsibilities and people rely on my work a lot.

What has been the best thing so far about your placement?
Taking part in searches, working for the executive recruitment team we are sometimes given very specific roles to fill for high talent roles. This means advertising on the website is not sufficient, therefore I have to help find and approach people on LinkedIn to attract them to work at GSK, this saves GSK thousands of pounds because if this was not done they would have to go to a search firm which on average costs around £30,000.

What is your job title and what projects will you be working on?
I secured a 12 month placement with Grant Thornton LLP as an Associate within the Business Risk Services team of their London offices. This team's key purpose is internal audit which is as an independent, objective assurance and consulting activity designed to add value and improve an organisation's operations.  I have been out at several clients working on compliance review audits and insurance broking accounting audits where I am tasked with identifying the risks posed to an organisation and what controls should be in place in order to mitigate those risks. I then have to ascertain through sample testing, whether these controls are in place and how effective they are. Finally, I have to report on my findings, discuss what the testing showed, how effective their controls are and how the design and implementation of these can be improved to further reduce the risk to satisfy the company's risk appetite.

What has been the best thing so far about your placement?
I have really enjoyed being able to work at clients and interacting with new people from all levels of the business. I am also really enjoying the fact that I am getting to experience so many areas within business, from an HR audit to an insurance broking accounting review and a forthcoming Charity review.

What else would you like to say about the Year in Business programme at Royal Holloway?
Although the effort that you have to put in order to secure a placement is pretty intense, I can say with confidence that it is all worth it. I am really enjoying myself, despite the early morning and long commute, and have already learnt so much. I also get great enjoyment from the different learning style that you experience in comparison with that of University.

I have been told by countless colleges that they wished that they had been given the opportunity to do a year in industry for a number of reasons but namely because of the advantage it will provide me with when I leave university and begin applying for graduate schemes. 

Before starting this internship I was very unsure as to whether a job in accounting and the financial services sector was something that I wanted but now I am now more certain of a future path.

For more details of Olivia’s placement have a look at the full profile on our blog.

What recommendations would you make to Year in Business students starting in their 2^nd year at Royal Holloway?
For those who wish to complete a `placement year', the second year is very much crucial in terms of both your studies and work application. One of the helpful sessions provided by RHUL I would say is CV writing process where you can find how to make a good CV relevant in conditions of UK rules and restrictions. However, it’s you only who can make your application process successful. So besides your studies, please do your own business world research. If you wish to get a worthy work experience, try to start thinking of it at least one year before and don’t be driven only by other people’s opinion – this may be not applicable for you!

What is your job title and what projects will you be working on?
My job title in Lucidity London is Junior Analyst and I work on several marketing projects in different industries: luxury food industry (caviar), music industry etc. Some of the projects will require travelling in few months’ time. In particular, I have just made a visit to Germany to find out more about how the caviar farm operation works. Overall, those projects which I’m engaged in are very different and interesting to work at. 

How have your first few months been on your placement?
I had a great induction week which was full of new activities such as administration work, getting in touch with new people, understanding upcoming projects and ideas. Now I’m constantly learning something new along with amazing practical experience, so this year is going to help me with my final year at Royal Holloway as well!

What has been the best thing so far about your placement?
One of the best things about my placement is that my work requires academic knowledge and digital skills that perfectly meet my field of studies. Besides, working on few projects require meeting senior people, much travel, as well as great opportunity of being creative and open-minded – amazing experience (I hope you would agree)!

How did you find the application process?
As this was my first proper job I had a lot of questions in my mind. After a session with the Careers centre, I reworked my CV and shortlisted a few jobs from a website called Ratemyplacement. I did try around 7 to 8 firms before Nomura. My first role at Nomura was for 4 months in the Client Account Management & Strategy team. When a lady was about to go on maternity leave in the EMEA Product Management Group I was recommended for the job by one of the EMEA Directors. After a videoconference interview with a Director in London and two people from the team in Mumbai, I was given the job. Doing the job of an Associate at the age of 21, it was not only a learning experience but also an honour.

What approaches do you recommend for other students?
I personally believe students should start early. They should plan what industries they wish to enter and selectively look for jobs. Also networking is extremely and useful, as you may have figured from my story. Thus it would be beneficial to attend networking events, job fairs etc. Don’t have a closed mindset and do look for jobs outside the UK.

What is your job title and what are the major projects you have been involved in?
I was an Intern at Nomura in Mumbai involved in real life projects replacing permanent employees. In the client Account Management and Strategy team I was making reports analysing revenues and broker votes etc. In the Product Management Group I was involved in making a number of reports that managed the equity products of the firm. The best thing about my placement would definitely be the fact that I coped with doing a very difficult and highly skilled job in probably the most competitive industry. I also earned a lot of appreciation from very senior employees.

How has this placement prepare you for your final year at University?
Working under trained managers and business leaders helped me to better understand what I had studied in my first 2 years in university. Working for a global investment bank, has increased my knowledge of the global business and economic environment. In my 12 months at Nomura I have had various situations thrown at me which have taught me valuable lessons on how to be a better manager and also a better employee. Thus having this knowledge and experience I can add more input to my final year than I could have otherwise.