Real Estate, Strategy and Operations Analyst Review

I really enjoyed working at IBM for my placement year. The community at the company was excellent, especially for us foundation students! I never had a boring day, and the work I was doing made me feel useful and worthwhile.

I felt very valued by my colleagues. The work I did mattered, and if it wasn't completed on time, there would have been a problem as everything is deadline based, and you cannot get an extension. I felt good about myself when other colleagues asked me to complete work for them, and when I did a good job, they felt like they could come to me again, or refer me to someone else. More often that not, I received an email like "I've had your name passed to me by xxx and I was wondering if you could...", which made me feel useful and that I was doing a good job.

I am always in constant communication with my manager, and I felt very supported. Any queries I had or problems I was having, I knew I could report to my task manager and she could help me. Also at IBM, we have an Early Professionals Manager (EPM) who preforms your reviews, and throughout my year, he has been more than happy to speak to us about anything.

Obviously some days and weeks were busier than others, but the majority of the time, I had a pretty packed calendar for the day! For me, most days started at 8.30am and finished at 4.30pm, and from the start, the days were filled with calls or meetings. At busy times, sometimes you had to work a bit later or grab a quick 15 minute lunch if you wanted to finish on time and get home.

During my placement, I was given a lot of responsibility, as I was the only intern in my department. It was my job to cover the whole department at times, from things like taking minutes for calls, and then sending them out after; processing approvals etc. It makes me feel that if I was not there, they would have trouble doing the basics.

Based on the training we received, I think this will help us a lot when I return to uni, as we were given training on how to build your own personal brand, education on presenting and communication skills. There was also training seminars that showed you different aspects of the company e.g. the consulting side, and offered you the change to think if that is what you want to do after we graduate. Based on the skills I developed, I have improved my confidence, my presenting skills and working to a deadline.

In my office were I sat, it was quiet as I was the only intern so noone my age to speak to but there was others around me that you could speak to and I got to know very well. I was based in Portsmouth, and in the entire office, there was around 50-60 interns, so at lunch time we would all sit together and catch up. This made going to lunch fun as there was always a laugh. However the office was always very quiet on Wednesdays and Fridays as most of the employees worked from home.

The placement was very well organized. The placements fall into the foundation community, which consists of interns, graduates and apprentices. This means that whenever there are community events, there is a good opportunity to network with other members of foundation and learn about different job roles. The foundation team frequently sent out emails about upcoming events and offered training modules to improve our skills.

For my particular role, I was given training on the systems and how to use them so I could preform my day to day role. For one area of my role, I was given training on the data centres and how they work (UPS's, AHU's, etc) so that when I was on the calls, I could understand what the engineers were talking about. This was something that my department undertook for me as it would improve my learning and understanding. As part of the company, every employee has to undertake 40 hours training throughout the year, so whether it is team building or learning a new course, it is very useful as allows you to develop more skills.

Very appealing. I've never had a bad day at IBM so would be more than happy to come back! To come back as a graduate, you would receive double the salary of an intern. To come back, it all depends on your score at the end of your 12 months. if you achieve a high enough score, you can come straight back for a business interview and therefore skip an assessment centre. This therefore makes everyone work a bit harder so that we don't have to go through with an assessment centre again! I would be more than happy to come back.

Social life was great at IBM. Being based in Portsmouth meant that interns would all meet up for a Friday or Saturday night out and everyone got along very well. Some of the boys here formed a football team and they played against others. At other locations the situation was similar. At London, due to people being spread out across the city, they were more likely to have after work dinner and drinks during the week and not meet up at weekends. But most of the interns lived together, I currently live with 4 others.

The costs in Portsmouth weren't bad. Monthly rent costs around £400, with bills on top of that. Where I live, I drive to work so probably costs me around £10 a week if I was in the office every day. But there is a train station near the office so can get the train easily enough. For socialising, prices were normal, night outs where standard maybe £20. However if based in London it would be a lot more expense, but you do get a living allowance for living in London

Nightlife is pretty good. After a while you find where you like to go and tend to stick to that place. But there are lots of different pubs/clubs in Portsmouth. In Southsea where I live, there are lots of bars if you dont want to go into central Portsmouth, although only costs £5 in a taxi.

There are lots of things to do outside of work, for example, going to the ballet, getting the train to Southampton and going shopping, joining the gym (Which the majority of the interns have done) and going to classes, joining football or rugby teams, going for dinner and drinks, going to see bands perform... countless more.