Business Intelligence Developer Review

Despite working in a field that I initially had no knowledge or interest in, I have enjoyed the projects that I have been a part of, but I wish that I was a bit more busy at times. I found it hard to be part of workshops and external projects due to a lack of communication, but I have been to a few.

My work had value to clients and this was recognised in the team. My manager would try to find work for me that was suitable for my skills and my colleagues saw me as a very knowledgeable person who could assist with SQL-related problems or teach them new skills.

At the minimum, you have a task manager and an EPM (Early Professionals manager) that you can turn to for help. They usually support you in your decisions and can answer some questions, but I found that they weren't very helpful with helping me to find projects or connections in other business areas. However, my task manager has helped me in creating areas that I can work in.

I was not busy at all to start with because my access permissions needed to be sorted out, and I could only do menial tasks like go through tutorials or updating the internal wiki. When I was given projects to start, it started becoming busier, but it would quite often be blocked by someone else in the team that couldn't make time to do what was required of them. It's now approaching the end of my placement and work has slowed down again.

I was given full responsibility on a key deliverable where I oversaw development, production and testing of an active report. I had another project which I was working on independently for a long time until my second-line boss ordered for a large scale project of the same kind, of which I am now assisting with.

I have learnt about and used various current IBM software products. My unit meetings have helped me develop or use key interpersonal/"soft" skills. But in terms of my degree studies, it can only help with database-related modules, and not much else is relevant.

No-one in the team really uses the office on a regular basis, and over half of the team are based elsewhere, some from other countries as well. On average, myself, the other intern and a colleague who transferred from India would be in the office the most, with my second-line manager coming into 1-2 times a week, two other employees coming in 1-2 times a week, and some others coming in whenever they felt like it.

You have a two-day induction at the start of your year, but I found some of the content to be unhelpful or a waste of time (since I had to travel to Portsmouth, despite being based in Hursley). Then, for the Foundation interns, there are 3-month and 6-month reviews where you discuss personal objectives and how you are finding the placement. At the end, there is a final presentation where you talk about how your year has helped you and what work you have done. You are required to complete a placement journal that logs your objectives, goals and work over the year. There are some skills workshops set up for interns that you can attend as well.

Some skills workshops are set up for the interns' benefit and you are certainly encouraged to attend. If there is an event happening that you want to attend, you can inform your task manager and usually you can go if you don't have critical work to do. If the event is in a different location to your base location, you can ask both your task manager and EPM for permission and they can expense your travel costs or accommodation if applicable. But some opportunities are made available to certain groups of interns, which was annoying because I wanted to get involved with technical events.

All interns must apply through the graduate scheme again. Depending on your performance, you can be fast-tracked along the process, but it is not guaranteed that you will get a graduate position. However, the number of graduate job areas outnumber the intern job areas, and most have no skill requirements, so you can apply to a different area if you wish, and being an intern means you are more likely to get a graduate job than other external candidates. Some positions may have hiring freezes.

My team have a Christmas lunch and a big team call every year, but due to their location, not much else happened. Foundation interns would have unit meetings every quarter where we would play games, but aside from that, I never got involved with anything else. I think they organised a meal once but nothing else since then.

I lived in an unfurnished flat in Chandlers Ford for <£300 a month not including bills, which I'm told is quite cheap for the area. But this place is a small quiet town. It's close to Hursley and a free minibus can pick you up and take you to work, but if you want to socialise, you're better off living in Southampton or Winchester.

Non-existent for reasons given above. Suppose it's not too bad of a thing if you don't care though.

You are encouraged to do "Giveback" which is a scheme for volunteers at IBM outreach events, which can vary from overseeing assessment centres to teaching school children. There are also various internal projects in other business areas that are advertised, although this depends on your mailing lists. I was not on certain mailing lists even though I was supposed to be, so I ended up missing out on opportunities.