I was an intern at HadFab, a company outside of Edinburgh near Tranent that makes steel pylons for electric cables. I really enjoyed my internship, and felt very grateful to get it. I initially applied to the programme as I was looking to get experience that would help me with employment after my studies, as well as allow me to experience a new working environment, and I personally felt I gained a lot from the experience.
My work at the company mainly revolved around data and financial analysis. I started off doing a bottleneck analysis, analysing where work spent the most time waiting in the business, which led me to doing an analysis on whether it was worth the company buying a new machine called a plating machine. To do this I assessed the cost of continuing to subcontract work due to not having enough plate machines vs buying the machine, and provided my recommendations to senior leaders in the company. As well as this I also did a Non-Conformance Report (NCR) analysis. NCR's are raised when there are problems in the company, for example manufacturing errors, missing parts etc. This allowed the company to see recurring patterns on where manufacturing errors were occurring. Another thing I did was provide assistance implementing a new subcontracting process, which involved validating forms and checking with the employees who would be using it whether it was okay or not. The final thing I did was a lease vs buy comparison. After the initial plating machine comparison, I was asked to work out costs for all the equipment the company was currently renting, this included forklifts, generators, lifting platforms - and assessing whether it was worth buying any of them. I then provided my recommendations to managers, which provided real value because if the renting costs were to stay the same and they were able to purchase the equipment at the costs found it would provide savings of over £70k over two years.
I really enjoyed my internship. I initially knew nothing about steel fabricating, as my undergraduate degree in Sport & Exercise Science was completely unrelated. However everyone in the company was very helpful and answered any questions I had. Furthermore, because I was planning on getting a job in data analysis after, I feel it has contributed greatly to my CV and has provided evidence to myself that I'm heading in the right direction in regards to career path. I really enjoyed my work, as it was the type of work I was looking to get into after university, so I was very grateful to get the opportunity to do things I wanted to do, and gain experience that I feel will be valuable when applying for jobs after. I was actually quite surprised by how involved I was able to get, and felt all my recommendations were taken seriously, and that I was making a valuable contribution to the business.
Overall I am very happy with the Saltire Scholars experience, and would recommend the programme to others. I felt my CV and cover letter improved through every application, and from all the feedback I received I definitely feel a lot more confident taking the next steps in my career. The programme has a variety of different types of internships, in a variety of different organisations, so if you're looking to gain experience you can take with you in your career and help you get hired in the future it is something worthwhile doing. Not only this, but it is also worthwhile doing even if you end up not getting an internship. Throughout the application process, my CV and cover letter improved greatly thanks to the feedback from the Saltire Scholars team – something I'm very grateful for and feel will benefit me enormously going forward. To anyone going through the process, my advice would be that if you’re experiencing rejections in the beginning of the process, not to let it put you off. In the beginning of the application stage I received a number of rejections, and would have given up were it not for a chance encounter I had with someone at my work. They were also going through the process, and they suggested I get in touch with someone in the team for advice on improving my applications. I did this and the responses I started getting improved significantly. This was very important, as before going through the process I had never received verbal feedback on my CV and cover letter from experienced people who look at applications on a regular basis. I added in extra content on what I had done throughout university, more information about my skills and experience at the top of my CV and provided a detailed description on why I was applying to that company in particular and the responses I was receiving significantly turned around as I went from getting no responses to getting multiple invites to interviews.
Another piece of advice would be to apply throughout to the very end. The number of people applying thins out towards the end, and your odds of having a successful outcome improve, even though the quality of internships doesn't go down. I didn't get an offer until the end of June, due to a random outcome resulting in more internships, and I believe I wouldn't have got it had I not been consistently putting in applications, staying in contact with the Saltire Scholars team, and continuously trying to improve my application. While an internship offer is not guaranteed, it will become more likely if you keep trying.
I would like to thank all the Saltire Scholars team for their work and helpful advice. I definitely would not have gotten an internship were it not for their help. You can tell it is not just a job for them, that they care about what they're doing and they're very much making a positive difference in improving people's futures.
