Engineering placement

dbeckett · 18 Mar 2010 at 22:27

I am currently a second year student studying MEng electrical and electronic engineering and I'm heading for a first Honours degree. I've just got an offer to work for a company next year(12 months) for my placement year, I accepted their conditional offer by telephone but nothing has been signed contract wise. The company has around 1,500 employees and I'll be based in their embedded generation business(i.e making sure their generators are maintained around the country), here is the letter they've sent me(with the useless info deleted).

The following terms and conditions will attach to your appointment:

1. Your salary will be £11,407 per annum.
(and is subject to appropriate deductions in respect of National Insurance and tax.)

2. Your employment is subject to an initial probationary period of 3 months.

3. You will not be entitled to any paid sick leave other than the statutory requirements.

4. Holiday entitlement is 20 days per annum and will be earned at the rate of one-twelfth days for each completed calendar month of service. You will be paid for the 11 Public Holidays as they occur, whilst employed.

5. The appointment will be terminable by one week’s notice in writing on either side.

6. The normal hours of duty will be Monday to Friday, 37 hours per week.

Since this is my first proper job I'm kinda wondering if any of you guys could help me, is it just me or is the £11,407 salary a few £1,000s low? I'm just thinking that working in Tescos for that number of hours could get me the same amount of salary and this job has a lot more responsibility and knowledge needed, can I or should I be thinking of asking for more or do you think it would be unwise?

dbeckett · 18 Mar 2010 at 22:40

I'm currently studying in Belfast, Northern Ireland but my course is top5 in the country(according to a certain newspaper), the company that offered me the job had few applications, mostly cause no-one in my course wants to do electrical as it ain't as interesting as electronic, the company even had to extend their deadline by 2weeks and only got a total of 5 applicants, they gave the job originally to my friend who declined and took up another offer(paying £14,000) leaving me and 3 others so I got the offer next, but I know I'm a lot better than any of the other applicants grade wise and capability wise.

I'm just thinking 11,500 is low to live on, when you sub in insurance and a car and everything else I'll need to buy to be able to do my placement year

dbeckett · 18 Mar 2010 at 22:47

But in all honesty the only reason I'm doing it is cause its been offered, I'm unsure if its the company I want to work for, I applied to a few other companies I would have loved to work for but didn't get it, and this company's graduate prospects ain't great, well... a its a Republic of Ireland company so they don't have a big department up North, however their owners also own Northern Ireland Electricity so I surpose that'll bring in plenty of contacts.

Would it do me any harm asking for more money?

dbeckett · 22 Mar 2010 at 16:07

I just rang them up and they said it was the going rate and they thought it was a fair pay even when I said that I talked to my careers adviser who said it was well below the normal amount.. so I'm now thinking either

A) They're ripping me off
B) It's the right pay as its not a great job so I won't gain a lot of experience from it..

I now have to completely reconsidering my options and think about what I'm gonna do, but I've finally got the cast off my broken foot today so things are getting better

but thanks for all your help, nice to hear what everyone else's experiences of placement were!

dbeckett · 22 Mar 2010 at 17:16

There's a scholarship that was just announced last week, 3 places for Meng only students which out of the 14 Meng in my year only a max of 2 others would be competing against me as either they have a placement or don't do electrical modules anymore, although its open to all years but mightn't be as much attraction if they don't need a placement yet but its advertised as 20k plus in sponsorship (ie placement year, summer work, paying for fees etc) so looking at that but due to timing I can't wait to hear from them before deciding fully on this current offer

or else theres only 1 other opportunity which deadline closed last friday but they extended their previous deadline by 2 weeks and I doubt they have too many applications as again its electrical and isn't as popular a career path as electronic