Commercial Management Specialist Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my year at IBM. It was an interesting and eye opening experience which allowed me to get an insight into the way a large business goes about its day to day work. The social side of things was also a big bonus, where there were plenty of other placement students in which you could share experiences with.

During the beginning of my placement, I didn't feel to valued by my colleagues, as I didn't really feel like I was contributing, however a few months into the placement this started to change. I was getting more roles completed, and some positive feedback from my team helped to make me feel as if I was contributing and valued.

My manager was great with support and guidance. If I ever had a problem, I could easily ask him any questions or queries relating to the work I was doing. If he didn't know the answer to the problem, he would always point me in the right direction as to who or where I could then progress forward to get the answer.

How busy I was on a daily basis depended on what time of the month it was. I was a lot busier towards the end of the month/ beginning of the month as I worked in a financial and business role. Day to day I could be relatively busy, but not to a degree where I would be overworked, I would be able to spread my tasks out in order to make sure I had enough time to get everything done.

At the beginning of the placement the responsibility was quite minimal, but as the placement progressed and my confidence and skill increased within the role, more responsibility was passed onto me. This helped make my days busier, but also helped to make the placement more enjoyable and beneficial.

The skills I have developed will help greatly within my final year of study. I have become a lot more confident in presenting to large audiences and my communication has improved greatly. These are two skills which will be prominent within my final year of University. I have also learnt a lot of new skills within Microsoft Excel, which is a software that is used a lot during my course.

The atmosphere was okay in my office, most days was just come into the office and get the job done and then go home. However during some periods of time there would be activities going on within the office, such as a bake off competition between the teams in the office, which were fun to compete in and judge.

The work placement was well organised, with both the induction days which helped introduce us into the company and then the first day in our actual base location went down really well with communication between the company and the placement students being great.

The social scene where I worked was incredibly high and active. There were around 60-70 placement students in my base location and we all got to know each other quickly. This enabled a lot of time to organise social events with each other to make the placement more enjoyable.

The cost of living for me was rather acceptable, I was previously living in London where the cost of living is much higher than average, so moving to a new area meant the cost had decreased. This helped me afford to live comfortably while also have a social life.

The nightlife in the area was rather good. Although we had to go to the nearest city, it still wasn't that far away and had a large range of different pubs and clubs to choose from, to suit everbody's tastes. Most weekends there would be at least one night out or a party going on.

The company I worked for had a scheme called Giveback, which allowed employees to sign up to volunteer events, which would get you outside of your usual job role to help with other activities such as mentoring and public speaking.