By Lucy Grimes
It wasn’t until I began my second year of study at the University of Sheffield Management school that I considered undertaking a placement as part of my degree. With so many employers on campus and careers events happening throughout the year, I began to think about the future and what I wanted to do. And it wasn’t long before I realised I had absolutely no idea! Having done bits of work experience in finance and accounting, and deciding it definitely wasn’t for me, I thought that the only way I was going to gain a better understanding of what I wanted to do in the future was by having a go, which is what led me to the decision to apply for a placement.
As I wasn’t certain which area of business I wanted to go in to, I searched for placements which offered a varied programme, and decided to apply for some retail management programmes. I was offered interviews with both Lidl and Marks and Spencer, two very different retailers. Having attended both of their assessment days, I was keen to secure the M&S placement. One thing that I learned at this stage was how important it is to work for a company whose values and ideas are in line with your own. I was very lucky to be offered the role at M&S, and signed my contract shortly afterwards.
Before the end of second year the Management School holds a pre-placement briefing which gives you an idea of what to expect and really helped to calm my nerves and worries about what to do if things aren’t as you expect. I began my placement in September 2013, and luckily had no problems.
The first few weeks were all about introducing you to the business, to retail, and getting to know the people you would be working with. This really helped me to settle in, and one thing I would say to anybody beginning a placement is to use this time to ask as many silly questions as you can! It’s better to make sure you understand things early on than to come unstuck later in the year.
After my induction period I began my first rotation as a trainee Food Commercial Manager. This involved training across two different stores, a premier store and a smaller Simply Food store. Moving around like this really helped me to gain confidence in working with and managing new teams. I also built some really great relationships during my time out of my base store which really helped me as I progressed through my placement, networking is definitely one of the biggest benefits from doing a placement year in my opinion.
After my Food rotation I was exposed to many other areas of the business such as 
Hospitality Management, Finance and Operations, Visual Merchandising, and General Merchandise. The variety of my placement was what I enjoyed the most; I got to work with many different teams, focus on different aspects of managing a business, and also develop different personal skills at every stage.
For my final attachment I was appointed Project Manager of the opening of a brand new pop-up school wear store. It was the first time this had ever been done in the business, and a fantastic opportunity for me to take full responsibility for a project from start to finish, recruiting a new team and working with Head Office to ensure the store was a success. Although a little daunting and requiring a lot of hard work, it was an amazing project to be a part of and gave me great exposure to areas of the business I hadn’t come across before. I loved every minute of it!
At the end of my programme I was offered a job with the company after Graduation, which I happily accepted. This has taken a lot of pressure off me in my final year, as I am able to fully concentrate on my studies without worrying about applications, interviews and jobs as well as deadlines and exams! And one thing which I have definitely found is that the work I did on my placement has really helped me when returning to university. I am now able to apply what we learn to a real business example which really helps me to understand the theoretical aspects of the course. Also group work, presentations and similar activities which I would have previously found daunting are definitely not any more, having done these things on a daily basis on my placement.
I would genuinely recommend anybody to complete a year in industry as part of their Business course. It really developed me as a person in many ways, as well as having a fantastic time, meeting some amazing people and leaving with a Graduate job secured for the future!