Nottingham Business School students see success on placement at Lubrizol Corporation

BA (Hons) International Business students Amy Turner and Jack Bowers have secured sandwich placements at international speciality chemicals company Lubrizol in successive years, exemplifying the high achievements of Nottingham Business School students. Placements at Lubrizol are extremely highly regarded, due to the global nature of the company.

Lubrizol employs over 8,000 people globally, with UK research and development sites in Derbyshire and Manchester. They offer around 30 placements to UK university students each year, with the majority in technical science and engineering fields. There are only three business related placements; Global Communications and Business Support, Marketing and Business Support and Purchasing.

Amy Turner has impressed on placement with the company, who reached out to commend Nottingham Business School for the quality of their placement students. Mike Harding, Global Creative Services Manager told us: “Amy has been a joy to work with over the last year and she has been an integral part of the team.”

“Her International Business course has given her a great grounding for her time with us. Although we are a creative team, we also take planning and process very seriously and this is something that Amy thrives at. She has been involved in charity planning and events, marketing campaigns, research, film and photography cataloguing and even assists our drone pilot on locations across Derbyshire.”

Amy delivering a PR presentation at Lubrizol

Amy enjoyed a varied role in Global Communications and Business Support, and is now handing over her role to BA (Hons) International Business student Jack Bowers for the coming year. She explained what her placement role involved: “My role is quite difficult to define, no two days are the same. I work within the Global Creative Services team alongside graphic designers and photographers from the UK and the US. I help to coordinate the jobs assisting the project manager, and leading my own projects too including working with our vendors for promotional giveaways. I work closely with our PR agency to create articles for the media about Lubrizol, also working alongside the Global Corporate Communications team based in Ohio, USA at the Headquarters. I’ve also been able to work closely with our Charity and Community Committee to increase awareness of Lubrizol’s Corporate Social Responsibility activity.”

“Although I haven’t travelled abroad during my placement year, I interact with people all over the world everyday which I think is an amazing opportunity, as this is the kind of organisation I want to work in after I graduate. I have done a lot of work with those based in the US, but I have also worked closely with those in Spain, Germany, Singapore, China, India, and so many more!”

For students interested in completing a placement year, Amy discussed the application process: “The application process for my placement was really straight forward, I submitted an online application containing a CV, cover letter and some examples of work I had completed to a high standard in my first year. I then had a phone interview that was short and informal just for the manager to get to know me, which was followed by an assessment centre with only 3 others, where we had individual tasks to complete and feed back to the team, as well as a HR competency interview. I found out I had obtained the placement within the same week which I was so pleased about!”

The Employability Team at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) are available to support students during the application process and throughout their placement year. Find out more here: https://www.ntu.ac.uk/life-at-ntu/life-outside-lectures/plan-your-future-employability-at-ntu?utm_campaign=employability&utm_medium=ShortURL&utm_source=ShortURL&utm_term=EMP