Pros
Generous starting salary. Company that is growing.
Cons
As a manufacturing graduate you get the short end of the stick compared with PD graduates. My advice to anybody applying for a grad scheme would be to avoid manufacturing at all costs. PD graduates are sent around the company on 3 month placements - the idea is to give them the breadth and experience of what the company is all about. There are PD graduates who even get sent to America (Portland, etc) on a one month placement. If you are a Manufacturing grad, tough luck. Placements are not in the curriculum so you are at your Manager's mercy to be let off for a placement. You are expected to fill in a full-time role within your team almost immediately and as such I feel that two years is too long to be in the graduate scheme if you are in manufacturing. As in the second year there is absolutely nothing left for you to do. In fact, you really should be a full time employee after the first year and get a full salaried grade - and perhaps we (manufacturing grads) would have benefited in a hefty lump sum and pay rise at the end of last year (which the rest of the employees received and we got zilch). There is also the issue of location. Manufacturing grads will be also stuck in one of the three big manufacturing sites - Solihull, Castle Brom, or Halewood. Most of the graduate events are held in Gaydon or Whitley. So any chance of expanding your network or getting involved in the cool graduate projects, well, there isn't any. The management is also archaic in places, completely out of touch with the generation of millennials coming into the company. There is an abundance of talent, ideas, and aspirations from the grads to make things better in the company but most of these personas are misplaced into wrong departments, which can really shatter any form of motivation and whatever confidence you have in yourself. It was a huge intake in my year and I believe HR just threw all of us into random teams hoping we will make a difference. Hence there is a lot of misfit between talent and job roles - a narrative that I have found with myself and many other grads. This is one of the many reasons why their graduate retention rates have been so poor. I believe the manufacturing graduate scheme can be loads better, but for now, I suggest someone looking to apply to avoid it completely.