As many of you read this, you may be at the stage where you’re considering potential career paths… Well here is mine so far – I hope you can take something from it.
Here I am, 6 months into my internship with Enterprise Rent-A-Car. It’s crazy to think this time last year I was among so many other university students looking for a placement in an organisation to give me a foundation to kick-start my career. Every time someone asked me “what do you want to be?” or “what do you want to do in life?” I’d laugh, shrug and change the subject. But it got to a stage in my second year where I realised I needed to decide what I wanted to do.
I’m studying Business Management and Marketing at Nottingham Trent University– in my short time there, the only thing I did know was that I wanted to be in management – where I would have the flexibility to run and control my own business. I first saw Enterprise at the placement fair at my University. I loved the philosophy Enterprise had; they promoted from within, rewarded hard work and gave you control over your own career.
The recruitment process: was it grueling? YES it was, but in hindsight I’m glad. Why? Well put it this way, I can safely say I will never be phased by a job interview or assessment day again. Even though there were several stages within the process, each stage brought out a unique side and challenged me in different ways, ways in which I never thought I could ever succeed.
Having been at Enterprise for 6 months, I’m in my element. There are so many aspects of the job that I love. I have my own corporate accounts – being the account manager gives me the opportunity to go out and meet my clients.
Another great aspect to the job is the opportunity to meet so many different people and see how they have progressed within the company, having started in the exact same place as me. A key founding value for the business is that they reward hard work – and they certainly do; having already passed stage 1 of my management trainee programme, I received a tidy bonus! With only a few days to my stage 2 I am already planning what to do with the next bonus!
I am at a stage now where I’m still learning new skills and attributes every day, all the theory I have learned over the last few years I’m having the opportunity to apply.
I’ve put together some of my top tips for when you’re looking for a placement:
- Do your research on the company you’re interested in – it really does help to know some key facts and figures about them
- Don’t follow what others are doing
- Think long and hard about what you want to achieve from your course and what industry you’d like to go into
- When attending placement fairs, try to dress appropriately, the people that you will be meeting more often than not will be the ones who recruit you, the last thing you want to do is leave them remembering you for all the wrong reasons!
Other than that, don’t be scared to try new things, just go for it because you probably don’t have anything to lose! Good Luck!
We have a wide range of one year internships and 3 month Summer placements, as well as a number of graduate jobs.