Management Trainee Intern Review

My role is to essentially rent cars. But also to ensure that Enterprise's brand is maintained, customers get high levels of service and cars are clean and safe before going out on the road. My role includes cleaning cars, serving customers, doing admin such as processing new rental bookings and following up on returned rentals and a fair amount of driving. Depending on what branch you work in driving can consist of delivering vehicles, picking up customers or going to other Enterprise locations to pick up / drop off vehicles. There is a fair amount of driving in this role and you get to drive a massive variety of vehicles such as vans and premium cars.

A fair amount. The responsibility of driving brand new cars, some of which were very high end and worth thousands of pounds was defiantly a huge responsibility and one which had to be earnt (especially driving premium vehicles). You also are responsible for ensuring the right people rent vehicles, such as passing checks, and having a valid in-date license. I would say this is a fair amount of responsibility as you are dealing with very valuable assets to the business day to day. The only thing I would say is that you don't get too much responsibility when it comes to running the business, as there is normally one or more experienced people (often managers) whom oversee the running of the days and ensure everything is ran smoothly.

Yes, I have had the opportunity to build on existing skills, the most prominent I would say is customer service. Enterprise has a huge company wide focus on providing the highest levels of customer service, meaning I have been able to build on my people skills, communication skill and general customer service skills in this environment. This has been from serving a variety of different customers daily, dealing with situations where customers have issues which need to be resolved and following up with people to see how the process has been renting with enterprise.
I have also been able to build upon skills such as organization, time management and general business management as with Enterprise you have to be prepared with the vehicles you need for each day. This means ensuring vehicles are on site, clean, safe and ready to be rented fro all customers. This has been a big learning curve to better refine my skills in management and knowledge on business operations

Support and guidance was always there if you required it. Enterprise is very good at offering these things as the company offers mentors to help with your experience and learning. You also very often get to work with a team of people, which helps as they help you to learn and grow and there is always someone to fall back on when you need support or guidance. One thing Enterprise do particularly well at is the monthly 1-1's with your branch manager. Every month you get the opportunity to have a 1:1 and speak to your manager about work life balance, how everything is going and you get the opportunity to set yourself some goals which is a really nice tool to help support you throughout your career.

company culture is very team based but also very competitive. As juxtaposed as this sounds, there is a very competitive culture around sales and service, from a branch level to an induvial employee level too. There is a big ethos in branches and employees on their sales percentages. The general atmosphere within branches and in the areas is very focused on team work, you always feel like you can ask for help if you need it and you always work as a team.

I have had mixed feelings on my placement.
What I enjoyed:
- meeting new people
- getting to drive a range of different vehicles
- developing transferable skills for future employment
- the training provided by Enterprise
- the ethos around teamwork and being one Enterprise Family
- the driving side of the role
What I didn't enjoy:
- the long hours
- having periods where my work / life balance was not balanced
- having to deal with difficult customers frequently
- cleaning cars
- the general work in this role (the whole renting process, admin, follow up and serving customers becomes very repetitive and does not feel very rewarding. This can make the days feel the same and is probably my main point of unenjoyment regarding this role.

No