Commercial Manager Review

I thoroughly enjoyed working for IBM, not only have I enjoyed the company as a whole but as the account I was on. I also enjoyed the fact that IBM have such a massive intern intake which meant there I could build a huge network within IBM, including both interns and seniors within IBM.

When applying for an internship I expected to be the coffee boy in the office, but it was the complete opposite at IBM. Once I settled into my role, IBMers who were much higher up were asking me for help and advice which made be feel greatly valued and appreciated.

After my handover period, although I didn't have much contact with my manager, he was always there were me over chat and never failed to help me. Even when I had the most basic queries, my manager always took tike out to assist me no matter how busy he was. Not only did I have support from my manager but also from my Early Professionals Manager(EPM), he had open office hours at least twice a month and rest of the time always available over chat.

To start off with I didn't have much to do but as I became more know within the team and I was given more work to do. My manager saw I was getting the hang of the role quite quickly so he started to give me side tasks to do after I had completely my weekly tasks.

At the beginning I only had my daily/weekly tasks to complete, but asked my manager for more work from then on my manager started to give me ownership of different tasks and put me in contact with the client to assist the client as well as IBMers in the team.

Being at IBM, I've developed many of my base skills like teamwork, independence, organisational, and many others. I feel these skills will massively help in my final year of University and ensure I get the grades I aim for. These skills that I've developed in the year I could have never imagined would happen in such a short period of time. These will be invaluable for me once I leave University and hopefully can use them for IBM in the future.

I feel the atmosphere in the office is very balanced. When we need to crack on with work, everyone gets on with it and takes breaks in between for quick chats then back to work. Especially when we started to attend the client site, not only did we interact well between each other but also with the client.

In terns of organisation, we were assigned both a task manager and Early Professionals Manager who guided us throughout our year at IBM. The EPM's role was to support us with any issues we may have encountered and the task manager assted us with our day-to-day duties. We had a clear route into who we would report to depending on the queries we had.

IBM constantly run all sorts of educational sessions for interns and almost every week there were lunch&learns where we can find out about different parts of IBM and what IBM are getting involved in. The education sessions were very helpful in the respect that they developed our simple skills to make them into something we can use in the future. For example, I'm not very confident at doing presentations so I attended a presentation skills session which helped me become more confident and taught me how to succeed when presenting.

IBM never stays the same which excites me as I like to keep changing and getting into different roles. So future with IBM is bright as you will never be doing the same thing and always learning. Especially the GTS 6 month rotation scheme is very appealing as within your 2 year graduate scheme, you experience 4 different roles, invaluable experience!

Social scene is very good especially in the summer when interns gather to have lunch by the river and bars after work on Fridays. The intern network is massive especially at the South Bank office. We had an organised Christmas Boat party and have an end of year party coming up.

Being right in the middle of London, costs were high but nothing less can be expected from such a touristic part of London (South Bank). As we were in central London we ventured out to different parts of London to reduce our costs on nights out and ensure we still had a good time.

Nightlife was amazing and during summer all interns get together in the bar right next to the office (Understudy) after work and wind down. Bars and clubs are not limited in the South Bank area. If night life is not for you, there are a lot of different activities you can do in the area after work as you are in Central London!

IBM are very big on Giveback so we are always encouraged to take part in activities outside work. There are many opportunities, for example Careers Fairs, Workshops, Assessment Centres. These are all outside of work so a very good way to take some time off work and share our knowledge with the community.