Tolu Adeshina

Country of origin: United Kingdom

Placement; EDF Energy

 I chose to take a placement year because I wanted to have something extra on my CV that would make me more employable and help me stand out amongst other graduates. In addition I also wanted to gain experience of what the working world was truly like and if the sector I was interested in was something that I would like to have as a career following graduation.

During my placement year I worked in the human resources department where I took the lead in organising the Diversity and Inclusion week events at my workplace. My role involved providing support to the human resources business partners (HRBPs), for example, putting together findings to form reports for disciplinary and grievance cases. I was involved in organisational structuring - working with software programmes such as Microsoft excel and SAP to ensure titles and disciplines were coherent and up to date. As part of my role I liaised with the central HR team- Employee Services to organise leadership courses and assessment centres for team leader and group head roles. My role also involved making the processes on site i.e. the health related absence procedure and the progression and promotion procedures clearer for leaders to follow.

What I liked most about my placement was being able to be responsible for something and delivery it effectively. For example, I was responsible for organising two assessment centre – one for a new team leader in operations and another for a group head role in security. The assessment centres both ran very smoothly and I received praised from the plant manager following the success of the operations assessment centre. 

The placement has given me insight into a career (human resources) that I would like to pursue after my undergraduate degree. During the year I was responsible for organising the Diversity and Inclusion week at EDF Energy and this has given me an insight into leadership and has allowed me to be confident in organising events that can benefit the company. Throughout the year I have developed my communication skills and this will help me in my future career as being in human resources you interact with different people at different levels on a daily basis. I have learnt how to write in a business manner through writing proposals and guidelines, this will help me in my expected employment as I may be asked to write documents for the company.

The LUMS Careers Team were helpful in sending out emails of companies that required placement students, although I did not find my placement through this avenue, I appreciated the continued support in helping me find a placement, this support was valuable to me throughout the course of the summer when other students had already begun their placement.

I would say that my placement has been – insightful, hard work but at the same time rewarding, I have learnt so much and developed a lot as a person. The work is definitely hard as you have to organise your time and balance your priorities effectively as not to waste company time or money, but I have learnt how to be assertive and proactive in order to get things done, balancing and prioritising my time to be able to do so. My placement has been rewarding because I have learnt so much and gained a lot of skills that I know will be invaluable in my future career.