Public Sector Consultant Review

I worked with many excellent people who helped me learn about my job role, extending it and ways of working within a large company. I enjoyed it so much that I will be chasing a career in the same sector of work and job role.

I felt valued as I was given real work with real responsibilities and delivered work to a client. Because I had these responsibilities, employees treated me as an equal and therefore a valued employee.

Guidance and support is available and you are given a number of people who can give you support however everyone is always busy so you cannot expect people to drop everything to help you.

I was always busy and would work longer than contractual hours on a weekly basis, but this in my opinion isn't a negative. Being busy allowed me to learn how to prioritize tasks and I'd much rather be too busy than quiet.

I was given responsibilities to deliver work to a client on a weekly, monthly and ad hoc basis. This work would have negative connotations if it wasn't delivered so I was trusted to deliver it. I wasn't given hugely significant responsibility such as delivering a project, but I the responsibility was for regular work.

My placement will assist me hugely in areas including, work ethic, prioritization of tasks, communication and writing. I probably don't know the extent to how my placement will assist me yet, but I'm confident there will be a huge transformation.

I didn't work in an IBM office, so these comments aren't completely reflective of an IBM working environment. However, I would consider out client site office to neither be boring or exciting. We had various socials and charity events with good teams but these weren't particularly regular nor always in the office.

I was very impressed with the induction although short and was given plenty of knowledge which helped in through the year. There is also a dedicate team set for helping interns which means it is set up to a high standard.

I didn't receive any specific training to a certain skill and didn't have the opportunity to go on train courses etc. However, IBM have internal education tools for you to learn skills in your own time. I also got a lot of on the job training.

I would like to think I have an excellent chance of gaining a grad job with IBM however I won't know until after my placement as IBM don't employ grads straight from a placement year. Instead they go back into the recruitment process.

It was very good considering the team was so small. Although IBM employs a diverse range of people, everyone has similarities so much so, the employees get a long and socials are very enjoyable.

Living was very cheap for me, not only because of my location but also based on other circumstances. Socials were often very cheap as senior employees would buy drinks for the younger ones.

The nightlife was good however not exceptional. I would put this down to us having socials on weekdays rather than weekends. The city is likely to be much different on a weekend.

There were opportunities within IBM to get involved outside on my usual work however, finding the time for this was very difficult. However, outside of IBM, there were very few opportunities which were practical.