Dream Placement

I went into Dream Placement looking for leadership opportunities and an insight into working in politics. I found both during my week in the office of Copeland MP Trudy Harrison and her constituency team. I was surprised at the office environment – so friendly but so hard working on behalf of the constituents. I accompanied Trudy on a visit to Furness General Hospital where I also met newly-elected Barrow-in-Furness MP Simon Fell.

I really enjoyed the atmosphere and felt very much like one of the team. I’d never had an experience like this before – I had done straightforward work experience but my Dream Placement was quite different.

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Responsive Ltd are really pleased to continually support Centre for Leadership Performance Cumbria – a great asset to the not only the youth of Cumbria and its future generations, but those of leadership in business too! More companies should get involved.

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I had done work placements before but nothing like this. I was already thinking about civil engineering as a career – but I had no idea of those skills being used in the rail sector, so working with the Story team was a real eye-opener.

The Dream Placement application and selection process was surprisingly tough but we got good feedback along the way that will help improve my skills going forward.

Story Contracting has a really good graduate scheme so that will be something I will be looking at in the future and they have offered me the chance to do some more work experience over the summer. I will definitely stay in contact with them.

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This was our first year taking part in Dream Placement although we have previously worked with the CfLP on Bright Stars which has been very successful and enjoyable. Dream Placement is a really good way of raising our profile with young people in our region, and also drawing attention to recycling and waste management as a career, that otherwise perhaps wouldn’t be thought about by the students. Our placement student (Jesse) was fantastic – very interested and enthusiastic throughout the whole week, demonstrated by an excellent presentation of his project at the end of the week back to our business. He was taken to a number of our different sites during the week to show the nature and complexity of work we do around waste management and recycling as well as spending time in our offices with our people, to understand the customer journey.
Personally, I really enjoyed coaching and mentoring Jesse during his time with us; seeing the business through his eyes gave me a refreshing perspective on what we do, but also seeing his skills and confidence develop over the week was reward in itself

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GSK were not even on my radar but I found the Dream Placement with them amazing. I got to meet and chat to the site director and deputy site director, and accessing people at that level was fantastic. It was nothing like the work experience I did in year 10 and I can’t imagine getting this sort of experience if I had tried to organise it on my own or through school.
One of the most surprising aspects was how well organised the whole process was from the application process and selection right through to the Placement itself. The interview was the toughest part but GSK said I did that really well and Dream Placement has given me a real confidence boost. I also found it impressive that the companies were able to choose students they wanted to talk to – not just us selecting a company.
The site director talked to me about qualifications and he advised that behavioural skills – leadership, managing teams and problem solving – are just as important as technical skills. It was definitely worthwhile.

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We are an SME and competing against some major players for young talent in Cumbria so Dream Placement is an important platform for us to raise our visibility as an employer. We work with the Centre for Leadership Performance on a number of different projects involving young people and they are all worthwhile for our business.

Christian and Charlotte were outstanding candidates and repaid the time and effort we put into creating an interesting programme for them. They were really keen to learn about the business and put a lot of work into the project we set for them, talking to a whole range of our employees and customers to determine where our business could be improved.

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