Making the Most of your Placement

Your year spent on placement will provide you with a wealth of opportunities. Here are some suggestions as to how you can make the most of these:

Preparing in advance
You have secured your placement, attended the pre-placement workshops at university and arranged your accommodation and travel for the coming year. However, by spending just a little more time keeping up to date with any items in the news involving your future employer and by doing some further research on the company this will result in you feeling more confident when you turn up for work on day one.

Dress to impress
When you attended your interview how were employees dressed? If in doubt send an email to your future supervisor or HR department to clarify the dress code and if still in doubt it is better to be too smart rather than too casual.

Be punctual!
If you are unsure how long it will take you to travel to work, have a trial run the day/week before. There is nothing worse than running late on your first day.

Be enthusiastic!
In the early days you may be asked to do tasks you consider to be simple or low level. It is important to be positive and make sure you complete the task to the best of your ability. Study the task from an analytical point of view; are there any improvements / changes you could suggest? Once you have demonstrated your capability you will be given more challenging and interesting responsibilities.

Be proactive
Once you have been with the company for a few weeks, arrange a meeting with your supervisor / mentor for an informal discussion regarding your progress to date. Are there any areas you need to improve on, any projects you would like to volunteer to work on?

Utilise the Placement Journal (available via MOLE)
The idea of a Placement Journal is to provide a framework for recording what you have learnt whilst on placement and the chance to reflect on your experience; this includes your successes as well as things which didn´t go quite to plan! Think about the skills you are developing and document examples of when you have drawn upon these skills. Recording and reflecting on your experiences / skills in this way makes it much easier to articulate what you have learnt. This will be especially useful when it comes to completing application forms or being interviewed for a graduate role!

Network!
Increasingly employers are using the placement year as a method of recruiting for their graduate training scheme or a way of assessing if they would like to offer you a job once you have graduated. Use opportunities such as social events, training courses, even lunch breaks in the cafeteria as a way of meeting more people within the company as you never know when you might meet them next!

Observe your colleagues
Take the opportunity to observe your colleagues and pick up tips on how they deal with different situations.

Reference
Although this may seem the last thing on your mind when you first start your placement, it is a good idea to remember throughout the year that your performance during the placement year is likely to influence the employer appraisal and reference you receive at the end.