Procurement Intern Review

Procurement/Commodity management is the process of buying things for the company while following all the different company procedures. My job was supporting the people who are leading these procedures. Such as filling in NDAs and talking to suppliers on their behalf, working on spreadsheets and occasional project work. You get to support the commodity managers in each stage of the process.

I started out with mundane tasks like filling in paper work and twiddling my thumbs because the team are reluctant to give out work if it means they will have to train you to do it. But once I picked up the necessary skills, people were more than happy to give me more responsibility but I never felt like i was being overloaded with responsibility either.

I've definitely developed much better communication skills in a professional environment and time managing. You take calls every single day with your team and suppliers, so you learn very quickly how to communicate effectively and coherently. There are also opportunities for you to develop organisational skills by hosting events.

At the start I had a very supportive team on site with me. But then my main mentor left and they never replaced him. So for the first 4 weeks of my internship I felt very secure and very guided and after that it became a lot less structured and I definitely lost motivation and morale as a result of it.

Very friendly colleagues on site and globally. Everyone is more than happy to help and incredibly supportive. A great company to work for.

It was hard to make friends as an intern as they can be quite cliquey and I moved 200+ miles away from home so it was a tough change on me mentally but my team were very supportive. The work was sometimes not the most exciting/engaging and I would have to nag people to get actual meaningful work. As a woman in a male dominated industry you definitely learn how to navigate being called thick in a professional way. The negative things I experienced were never within my own team but i would be foolish to pretend it didn't happen.

Yes