Pros
- The Labman facilities are fantastic - a totally integrated building with every level from open-plan offices through to a substantial manufacturing workshop, with a flat structure that means everyone knows everyone - and no-one, however senior, is closed-off. There are dozens of pastoral opportunities, ranging from the in-office squash court, gym, and climbing wall, to after-work pottery classes and lunchtime pool/snooker.
- The range of engineering projects is broad - everything from their own relatively small standard robots to huge contracts for global pharmaceutical companies.
- I got to work in areas I wouldn't normally as a student/graduate engineer, including hands-on/practical work, rather than just sitting at a computer.
- Generally everyone is very friendly and approachable, and there are a lot of young staff and interns/apprentices.
- I was there for their annual "Labfest" summer party, which was a great afternoon of informal socialising with my colleagues.
Kontras
- They initially sent me a contract with a salary less than minimum wage. This was sorted (and I was never actually underpaid) but that's pretty poor; especially given I received the interview after the national rate increase had come into effect - i.e. they had just recycled a previous year's letter with no update or proofreading. I had to meet with HR to sort it and it transpired that another intern had already raised the issue a week previously - but no-one had communicated that it would be dealt with to the rest of us affected.
- When I started, I was assigned a mentor - however they seemed to have very little interest in actually mentoring; assigning me one basic task and inviting me to one meeting proactively. Everything else I got from them took significant effort on my part - and in the end I received far more helpful responses from other engineers I approached.
- Their culture of independence and self-starting is good, but it's taken slightly to extremes - for an intern in a first office role you'd hope they'd at least assign you a desk etc., rather than expecting you to go and find your own!
- They simply did not have enough work for the number of interns they had recruited. During my 7 weeks, I spent about a week clearing out bits of the factory attic, including dismantling defunct pieces of scientific equipment. They had a tasklist where odd jobs were put; at one point I had so little to do I ended up spending a full day baling cardboard boxes. All of my university peers working similar internships elsewhere were assigned a project of some sort to work on personally alongside any other work they had - surely it wouldn't be that hard to implement a standard design or development task for interns to work on when there's no other work available?
- The Chair has an "interesting" approach to university students. While having my introductory conversation with him on my second day, he told me my degree was pointless/a waste of money/a waste of time - a somewhat questionable thing to be asking when they directly advertise internship roles for students! Labman then later asked me to represent them at my university careers fair...
