Vicky Thomas is a Leeds Met student on her third year placement at Acceleris Marketing Communications

When I first started looking at potential degrees at the age of 17 there were two things I knew that I wanted from it.

One of those was to be in the North and second was to find a degree which offered a year's industry placement. Both of which I found at Leeds Metropolitan University studying Public Relations.

I always felt as though a placement would give me the option to put into practice what I had learnt in my first two years and also help me to develop and broaden my skills base. This was compounded in my head when I began studying; many lecturers stressed the importance of taking a year out as it helps put skills in practice and also eases the pressure of final year slightly, as most students find themselves more prepared. Although the year is not compulsory, over 80% of students will undertake the placement as it is put across as being a vital part of the course.

After much searching I finally came across an agency that looked perfect for my needs, Acceleris Marketing Communications. Based in Harrogate but operating nationally, they service a wide variety of both public and private sector clients across the full marketing communication remit and were looking to take on a placement student to coincide with their existing placement returning to university. The agency is both fast paced and fast growing, with prior placement students having gone on to be employed on a full-time basis at Acceleris after graduation.

Although I am currently only in my second month at Acceleris I feel as though I have already been given the chance to learn new skills and work on various accounts, both consumer and b2b businesses including Motors.co.uk – one of the UK’s largest used car websites, Vans United and health drink Simply Hibi.

I have been very impressed with the way that I have been quickly included within the team and not made to feel like a placement student - constantly making cups of tea and filing papers! Since starting in August I have been coached and given briefing notes to write for various clients that have received good feedback from the media. Every member of the agency has made me feel welcome and have answered all of my questions without me feeling like I’m hassling them.

When searching for a placement, I found that the majority of businesses were willing to take on students for a year, depending on work load and affordability. Many were large name organisations such as Disney, Arsenal FC and O2, to name a few. It seems beneficial for companies to employ students as it is an extra pair of hands and at the end of the year it has, in most cases, been able to train a student well enough for them to be more of an asset to an employer when they graduate the following year.

This is certainly the case for one of my colleagues, Bev; she undertook a year’s placement at Acceleris for a year from summer 2006 and then went back to complete her final year at Birmingham City University. Having successfully gained her degree she has now returned as a full-time account executive within the company. Bev found her time extremely helpful and secured feedback from certain clients in her final year to feed ‘live input’ into her dissertation.

It is my belief that as long as both parties are willing to work at the placement, then these schemes can prove to be extremely successful. I have already heard of cases where certain students have ended up leaving their placements after only a week as they were treated very badly but in the main, most people I have spoken to are enjoying the time on placement, in fact most of them are now dreading going back to student life!

Louise Vaughan is Director and head of of PR at Acceleris and says about their student placement role: “We have operated a student placement scheme at Acceleris for a number of years and it has been highly successful – so much so that two of our recent students have gone on to progress full time careers with the agency.

“The old adage of ‘you get out of it what you put in’ rings true with placements - from both the employer and student perspective. We don’t believe in confining our students to admin tasks – they are required to operate as part of the account team and like our full time executives are given dedicated accounts to get their teeth into, learn about and deliver on. A placement enables a student to put theory into practice and then in their final year put the practice back into the theory with a more mature, commercial focus. As such they become a much more attractive option for a future employer.