RFS Manager Review

I have thoroughly enjoyed my work placement with IBM. IBM is a great company to work for, with a very open and friendly community. As an intern, I was given a great deal of responsibility in a client facing role. I have also been able to develop my skills in other areas, through participating in various Giveback events.

I felt valued by my colleagues and I felt like a legitimate team member. Everyone in my team understood the importance of everyone's job, so I felt well respected.

At IBM we have two managers - a task manager who manages day to day tasks and an early professional manager who is concerned with our personal and professional development. Any issues I had I knew that I could go to either manager. My task manager also helped me to find tasks over and above my role so I could develop in areas to I felt needed improving on.

How busy I was on my placement definitely varied throughout my year. Our busiest time is between June and November and I found I had a lot of work to do. However over Christmas my client had a contract freeze where work couldn't be undertaken, so I found myself with a lot of spare time. This therefore allowed me to take part in Giveback events such as attending careers fairs and organising events for the Warwick office. A slow start to the year meant I didn't have a great deal to do on the return from Christmas.

A lot of responsibility, I was allowed to contact clients from the beginning of my placement and attend client meetings.

The skills I have developed throughout this year will definitely help me when applying for a graduate role. My client interaction has definitely improved throughout the year, as well as presentation skills through attending various career fairs.

The atmosphere at the Warwick office was very quiet, with not a lot of full time employees working in the office - the majority work from home. The only people who really sat around me were other interns.

I feel that the placement was very well organised - I was always clear who I should approach with problems and having regular reviews with my EPM really helped me develop throughout the year. I also had a good handover period with the previous intern, who gave me handover documents to help integrate into the role.

At the Warwick office we had a few workshops put on such as communication and mentoring skill workshops. However I found that a lot of useful opportunities took place in the Southbank office. We weren't always allowed to travel and travel restrictions meant that alot of the interns at Warwick couldn't take part in these opportunities.

Doing a placement with IBM doesn't guarantee a graduate role, so we all have to re-apply back into the company. All the interns are judged against each other and we are ranked depending on our performance in our 12 month reviews. However I am definitely going to apply back into the company, as there are a wide range of roles and business areas that we can go into.

There are about 20 other interns in the Warwick office, however the majority of them live at home and commute from various areas such as Birmingham and Leicester, meaning that it was difficult to arrange events together. Only the people that live locally really did things together, which were about 6 of the interns.

The cost of living wasn't very high in Warwick compared to the interns in Southbank. My rent was £330 a month, with bills only being around £30 a month, leaving me with quite a bit afterwards.

Not great, there were only a few bars.

There is an IBM club for Warwick which organises various trips. However I didn't join as the events that were put on didn't interest me.