Commercial Analyst Review

Although the job itself is not something that I would particularly like to go back into in the future, I have had a fairly enjoyable time so far, there are plenty of opportunities to get out of the office and experience a range of different activities at IBM. There was a lot of other interns here at North Harbour, this definitely helped make the placement much more enjoyable.

Given a real job adding real value from day one, this was good. There was a change of management half way through, this drastically improved how valued I felt. As time went on throughout the placement I began to feel much more valued by the team and it become more enjoyable following this.

Support was always there when needed from my Early Professionals Manager, who was always happy to go above and beyond the expected tasks to make sure I got the most from my placement. The task manager that I had at the end of the year was also extremely helpful and taught me a lot, not just about my job but about the business world in general.

During the start of my placement I was extremely busy at all times, this died down slightly further on in the year once I got better at my tasks. A lot of the work came in very "adhoc" which made it difficult to predict. However, the days when I wasn't busy there was still plenty to get on with and a lot of opportunities for giveback, this was always fun.

I was given a full job role and felt like a key member of the team from the start, most of the customers I dealt with, and people in my office did not even realise I was a placement student. This is a great example of how much responsibility I wsa given, I was very happy with this. Being given this responsibility was great, I felt like there was nobody watching over my shoulder and I could do tasks on my own.

I have learnt a lot of skills regarding both the business and financial worlds, as well as key life skills such as presenting and additionally vastly improving my computer skills. However, on the other hand, my role was not very degree relevant and I did not learn anything that will specifically aid in attaining my degree next year.

Once again, at the begininning the atmosphere was fairly poor, but following the change of management the improvement was tenfold in my office. There was also a very strong intern community in the office as a whole, often socializing together outside of work. This was one of the major benefits to working at IBM, there was always people around and things going on.

The placement was set up very well, IBM have been a leader for placements for a number of years and this could be seen by how well ran it was. One thing I could suggest is that there could have been more information at the start of the placement before joining. Other than that the organisational structure was very good.

There is a wide variety of online training that any IBM employee can do at any time, most of this was good, however the system on which it is ran isnt great, and some of the lessons are very outdated. There was also the opportunity for giveback events such as careers fairs and going back to my University to give presentations about placements at IBM.

I will probably be applying back to work at IBM in the future, although I would not want to do the same role again, the Grad scheme is very good and I will definitely be doing more research on it. There are plenty of opportunities at IBM in many different sections of this business.

Yes, there was around 60 of us in my office which made the experience very similar to Uni. IBM itself didn't organise any events but many of the interns would get involved and organise events. It was very good to have a lot of other interns in the same boat and living in a similar area to me.

Fairly expensive, rent + Bills was about £450 a month, and with the pay being fairly low it was often a struggle, IBM didn't help too much with finding accomodation.

Portsmouth nightlife was good, plenty of places to go out and a lot of University students, there would always be something on on each night, this made socialising and events very easy. Portsmouth is also only a short distance from Southampton, Brighton, and Londo, which are all good places for nightlife.

In the Portsmouth area in general there was quite a lot to do, I joined the local rugby club and played weekly 5 a side. But there was nothing organised by IBM, any activites done outside of work had to be organised on our own.