By Jess Heald on Mon 08 December 2014 in Placement Blog
Four months ago, when our local MP David Lidington approached ProspectSoft asking if we had anything interesting to share, of course the first thing that sprung to mind was our award-winning Placement Scheme. Despite David’s busy schedule as a member of the Conservative party and Minister of State for Europe, he managed to fit us in.
. Always keen to get involved with local businesses, it wasn’t long before we’d opened the posh biscuits and we were all eagerly awaiting David’s arrival.
David’s visit was a very important milestone for our placement scheme, even our Managing Director came to have a cuppa with us while we chatted to him about why it’s becoming increasingly popular for undergraduate students to do a year in industry. One of the main things that we as an SME ourselves wanted to stress to David, was why a placement scheme at an SME is so good – and why we can do it so well.
It’s not uncommon for smaller businesses to worry about taking on younger, perhaps less experienced employees. But we explained to David these employees can inject fresh ideas along with an enthusiastic approach. This is why ProspectSoft love placements!
We feel that one of the reasons why Rate My Placement have regarded our placement so highly is down to how we have integrated it into our business. From when we employed our first placement ten years ago, the scheme has grown to become our culture and is at the heart of ProspectSoft. This means we have a support. This means we have a support network of returning and current placement students who understand the ins and outs of being on your placement year.
David immediately recognised this solid support network, and even commented on how well structured the ProspectSoft placement scheme is. He really loved our enthusiasm and dedication to the job. He was impressed by the amount of time and acknowledgement that Directors put into the scheme, from training us to mentoring us throughout the year, but what most stood out for him was in fact the placements’ contribution to the scheme. A phrase commonly thrown around our offices is “for placements, run by placements”, and this is an ethos that really drives the placement scheme forward.
Following our talk, David was only too happy to take a selfie with all of us current placements (we personally think it rivals the one from the Oscar!). He even expressed a real interest in taking these ideas and this level of enthusiasm back to Parliament, so hopefully from here we’ll see even more positive feedback from our placement scheme, and better yet maybe some more SMEs will get behind placements.