Samantha Evans

Country of origin: United Kingdom

Placement: The Walt Disney Company

I decided to take a placement year to understand what the application process would be like for graduate schemes and to prepare me for working life after I graduate. I also thought that this experience would help bridge the knowledge gap between the theory I had learnt about Human Resources practice in my degree and the physical application of this in the working environment.

My role was as the Human Resources Intern, one of 200 interns at The Walt Disney Company, and I quickly realised that the job title of Intern was no reflection on the role and responsibilities I would be given. I was a key member of the Employee Services team and worked to provide a quality service to both our internal and external stakeholders. I was given set tasks and responsibilities from the beginning of my placement that I worked on alone and took ownership for. To summarize these in a few sentences would be a difficult task as I very quickly got comfortable with the role and began to add more on to my workload. As the department was so busy and fast-paced my maturity was appreciated by the team and they were able to hand-over more tasks to me and get me more involved in projects to do with immigration and relocation and other areas of HR that the Intern wouldn’t usually have exposure to. 

My placement experience has been extremely rewarding. From the very outset it was clear that I would be treated as an equal and be given real responsibilities that would prove to be crucial for my development. I can honestly say that working at Disney was an invaluable experience, it was a very demanding role and incredibly busy department but it gave me real exposure to the pressures of work life and also to areas of HR that I don’t believe I would get anywhere else. The HR team and the wider culture at Disney is as you would expect; it was a really fun and exciting place to work and unlike anywhere I have worked before.

I absolutely loved everything about my placement; living in London was an amazing opportunity and working at Disney was full of character visits, film screenings, premieres and plenty more experiences you wouldn’t get anywhere else! I have made some amazing friends living in London and the intern community at Disney is fantastic, there have been plenty of opportunities to socialise away from the office. My role allowed me to grow professionally and add to my initial responsibilities based on my interests.

 Following the completion of my degree I will be seeking a role in Human Resources beginning at a Coordinator level. I can honestly say that after this year I am now confident in my ability to begin a career in HR. Working at Disney has meant I now have a strong network of contacts in HR whom have suggested I keep in touch on LinkedIn which I believe will be an extremely valuable tool when I graduate next year and begin searching for roles. My team at Disney have also told me to get in touch when I graduate and check to see if there are any roles available as they would be keen to see me return which is a great position to be in.