Placement Report: Reflect on your work placement experience

A work placement report is a summary of a student’s experience during a period of work as part of their studies, often as part of an internship or co-op program.

A work placement report reflects on your work placement experience from a developmental perspective by drawing in theory and its application in the workplace.

A good write up of this report will serve you well in your job seeking. It will also enable you to look at theory and its practice with a critical eye. In preparation for submitting the placement report, you need to refer to academic sources for the subject areas as applicable.

Things to Consider

This report is usually written in a formal business format.

Consider the following while writing your report:

• Structure and Presentation: Make use of headings and sub-headings to provide a clear structure (a report is NOT an essay).
• The information in the report must be clear and concise, and it should make appropriate use of language.
• The content must demonstrate a good understanding of the business, your role and your development. Relevant theories should be included.
• Referencing: You must cite relevant theories as per the university’s referencing preference.

Structure of the Report / Description of the Assessment

A good placement report should ideally have the following structure:

1. Content Page (Table of contents)
2. Introduction/ Executive Summary
3. The Employer/The Provider
4. Your Role
5. Skills Analysis
6. Personal Reflection
7. Conclusion
8. References

The placement report should contain this information, but students are permitted to exercise their creativity by including photos, graphs and info graphics.

Introduction / Executive Summary

The nature of the organisation at which you are working – organisation, its main products and/or services and business activities that the organisation is engaged in.

Here, you must clearly state:

What is this placement report about?

For example: You can write that “this placement report is about your placement experience with ‘Company name’ where you have been working for the past one year”.

Why is this placement report important?

You must mention why is the placement report important.

For example: You can say that “this placement report details the professional development activities that I have undertook while in placement with the company”.

You must also mention how the report is going to categorize your professional development.

For example: You can say that “the report first provides a short descriptive summary of my provider, followed by my skills analysis, then my critical reflection, and finally I provide concluding comments about my experience”.

The Employer/The provider

Here you talk about your employer (the provider).

• Which company? what line of business they are in?
• Why did you choose to complete your placement with this provider?

You can also include a SWOT analysis here comparing your provider with a similar business. PESTLE is also a useful tool to make comparisons. (You may include this in the Appendix if you’re short of words)

Your Role

What was your role and principal duties within the organization?

• What is your responsibilities or principal duties?
• Why did you choose this particular role?
• How is the role related to your professional development?

Skill Analysis

The aim and objectives of this section are:

• Discuss theory and its practice in regard to skills development during your placement.
• Critically appraise skills that you have managed to develop (Using SMART)

A good skills analysis will demonstrate critical appraisal of your own development by asking these questions:

• How have I developed this skill through my experience? (Achievable)
• What did I do to measure my development and was it successful? (Measurable; Timely)
• Why is this skill important for my professional development? (Specific; Relevant)

For example: Skills can be Communication, Leadership, Problem-solving, Networking, Teamworking, Negotiation, etc.

Development Skill: Team Work

• Specific – Teamwork is a skill needed for most roles. In my role, working with team members help me improve output by drawing on their expertise.
• Measurable – This skill can be measured by checking how well me and my team collaborates.
• Achievable – I worked in a interdisciplinary team at the firm.
• Relevant – This skill is relevant to my role as I worked in an disciplinary team and the diverse knowledge helped the team come up with innovative solutions.
• Timely – Periodically seek feedback from line manager on the job/project.

Development Skill: Communication

• Specific – Communication is a skill needed for most roles. In my role, communication helped understand the requirements of the customer and to inform them how they were being met.
• Measurable – This skill can be measured by checking how well I communicate with my team and the client.
• Achievable – I was interacting with the customer as well as my team.
• Relevant – This skill is relevant to my role as I was interacting with the customer and then working with other teams to fulfill those requirements.
• Timely – Periodically seek feedback from line manager and other team members on the job/project.

Personal reflection

Provide a critical reflection on your experience of the work placement.

For example: how were you challenged in the course of the work placement, and how did you resolve any difficulties? What was your contribution to the goals of the organisation?

How you have grown intellectually and professionally as a result of the placement? How has the placement changed your thinking about the relationship between academic interests and the working environment?

Critical reflection is important as it helps you do develop better self-appraisal at work by enabling you to focus on the following:

• The skills you need to advance yourself in your career.
• Evaluate your general competitiveness at work.
• Understanding how you can add value to the organisation.
• Your personal wellbeing.

Conclusion, References, Appendix

Finally, provide a summary of your report, reference your work and give credit to the authors.

Summarize the report with recommendations if appropriate or suggestions for self-improvement if relevant.

Appendix: You may include any relevant information/document such as:

• Your PDP, you can also use it as a evidence point.
• You may also include screen shot of your work, i.e., sample of a marketing content, presentation, or a website that you developed.

To summarize, a work placement report typically includes information on the company or organization where the student worked, the tasks and responsibilities they had, and the skills they developed during their time there. The report may also include reflections on the experience and how it relates to the student’s academic studies and career goals, as well as recommendations or feedback for the company or organization. Work placement reports are often required as part of the assessment or evaluation of the student’s performance and may be used to award academic credit or to demonstrate work experience to potential employers.