Pros
Top management is strongly oriented towards intern and graduate development. Structured information sessions are available to build high-level cross-disciplinary subject matter expertise. Most co-workers exhibited high integrity levels.
Cons
Graduate and intern programs are often strongly confronted at the departmental level. This is especially true in commercial and HSE areas, and less so in engineering areas. A situation can arise where an intern is simply ignored by their immediate managers, with no meaningful work allocated even when requested. Attempts to gain deeper hand-on experience are often curtailed by the approach 'who is going to pay for that?'. Virtually no feedback is received in the course of internship, and a strong message is explicitly sent to the intern that they are not needed in the department and their presence is a 'whim' of top management which line managers should endure. At the end of internship, many interns faced unexpectedly low and non-specific feedback, such as 'there is not enough fire in your belly', with the line manager failing to produce any specific examples or recommendations. A lost time, and, if you had offers from other companies, - a lost development opportunity. The company promotes curiosity, inventiveness, and continuous self-development. Line management often promotes the 'don't bother me' attitude and requires 'do something that I would like but I don't know what' approach.