Blog: Five tips to make the most of your placement year

Going on a placement year can be incredibly rewarding in terms of developing your skills, having new experiences, and growing your network, but making the most of the year can sometimes be tricky. Here are five tips to make the most of your placement year based on my own experience:

Engage, ask questions, and keep notes

Throughout your placement you will experience new ideas, learnings and probably sit through many, many meetings. By actively listening and engaging in meetings or discussions you not only give yourself the best chance to learn and be aligned with the conversation, but you also give off a great image to your colleagues!

During my placement I always found myself referring to previous notes and even used ones from my first week throughout the year. To make the most of your placement it is essential to keep notes to stay on top of all your work, but they also help your understanding and allow you to look back on what you learnt on placement in your final year to help with your studies.

Keep a journal

Following on from keeping notes, I also recommend keeping a work journal to help your employability in the future. Whilst a placement helps you to develop skills, it is also key for your future graduate applications that you can articulate certain placement experiences that will set you apart from others. For example, on my placement I led a key project for the business that brought out not just my practical skills, but my skills as a leader and communicator which I have used as examples to demonstrate my value to companies and gain a graduate job. It’s much harder to try to remember little details off the top of your head, so it is important you make the most out of your placement to then boost your future employability.

Don’t be afraid of mistakes! Own and learn from them, and always ask for help when you need it

You’re in a job unlike anything you have ever done before, so it is highly likely that you will make mistakes! However, it is how you handle them that will make the difference during your placement year. To save yourself and your colleagues the added stress, work with integrity and own up to your mistakes or ask for help whenever you get stuck. From personal experience I know this can create a strong internal dilemma because you may set yourself up for meeting high standards, but on a placement, you are there to learn and nobody expects you to be perfect. Especially in the beginning, own your mistakes and your team will do all they can to support you and help you learn for next time. This will help you progress much faster, builds trust with colleagues and will prepare you well for working in important situations later in life.

Get to know people outside your team and what they do

On placement you have such a diverse range of people around you, all in a variety of roles and functions. For some like myself though, interacting with people outside your direct team can be quite daunting. However, to really make the most of your placement you need to get out there and get to know as many people as possible and there are a few reasons for this! Firstly, it helps you to build your personal brand and expand your network. The more people that know you and what you are about can hugely benefit you both on placement and in your future. You are more likely to be top of their mind when it comes to new, interesting projects or even a promotion/graduate scheme later down the line.

Secondly, getting to know more about the roles of others may help you decide what career you see yourself in later on. Personally, going into my placement I had no real idea of the specific career I wanted, other than in a global FMCG (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods). However, by learning more about people’s roles and how they fit in with each other, I found a real passion for insights and it helped me get some clarity about what I might choose to do in the future.

Finally, a placement isn’t all about the work, it’s meant to be fun too! By getting to know people outside your team, you have a great chance of making friends with some really nice people. This is especially good if, like me, you choose to move to a new city where you don’t really know anyone.

Take every opportunity and enjoy yourself!

Following on from the year we have all had dealing with the pandemic, I highly recommend using this tip! Although my placement was impacted by Covid, I can easily say that it was hands-down one of the best years of my degree so far. I got to experience so many new things and was lucky to have an amazing social life alongside work which I never expected to happen. To make the most of your year though I would fully recommend that you take every opportunity which comes your way (as long as you don’t overload yourself), because you have a great chance to come out of it with much more than just a year’s experience in the workplace.

Hopefully, you find these tips useful! Going on placement is by far one of the best decisions you can make. It’s also important to get as much out of it while you can, because it will fly past if you are not careful.

Best of luck on your placement, you will achieve great things!

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