Recruitment Attraction (Marketing) Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my placement year, the amount of opportunities that were presented to me were endless and no two days were the same! During placement I traveled to a number of locations across the UK, I went to numerous conferences to learn more about the industry and best of all some swanky awards ceremonies! On a day-to-day basis my role within Recruitment Attraction Marketing really appealed to my marketing degree and I was able to be creative with a lot less red tape than I had expected!

I had fairly low expectations of placement life, I felt that people would look down on me and underestimate my capabilities as an "intern". However, I was pleasantly surprised, I was fully involved within my team with those in even very senior positions treating me as a complete equal. My ideas were really valued and I was given a huge amount of responsibility. I was never really introduced as a 'Placement Student' I was just introduced as my role title which was refreshing. I'd be lying if I didn't say there were occasions where I didn't feel like "just an intern" but these were incredibly few and far between (one of which was my own fault as I'd volunteered to help out on cloakroom at an event).

I was really lucky with my managers, I essentially had three managers over my year. The first one was based in the same location as me which made settling in really easy. Then she went off on maternity leave and I got a temporary new manager who took on the role in addition to their current role and worked in a different location. Then my third manager came in to officially take over the role but again was based in a different location to me. Virtual management was a really weird concept to me when I joined but you soon get used to it and it really helps with becoming more independent. All three of my managers were hugely supportive of me and super approachable. I also had a mentor who was assigned to me at the beginning of my placement and was amazing with regards to my personal development.

Some weeks it was crazy, if I'd been to a conference, careers fair and run an assessment centre it was hard fitting in my day-to-day role as well. However, I really enjoyed my work so this wasn't necessarily a problem for me. It also varied in peaks and troughs consistent with the academic year.

So much! Week two my manager asked me to attend a careers fair, as a newbie knowing relatively little about our schemes this was really daunting but as she said 'what's the worst that could happen?' - I think this is an ethos that is consistent throughout IBM. Throughout the year I featured on employer panels representing IBM. I traveled alone to Mock Assessment Centre workshops and was not only the main point of contact but running the sessions from start to finish. I was the main point of contact for our suppliers regarding our marketing campaigns. I managed the Facebook and Twitter for UK Recruitment. I also came up with a template for email communications which was used as best practice globally. The amount of responsibility I was given helped massively with my personal and professional development.

I think there were definitely some things I picked up from placement year that will be beneficial for my degree in terms of formal learning, I also think I will be a lot more attractive to potential employers now when I enter the graduate job market. But I think the main lessons I learned were soft skills, like time-management, presenting, confidence etc. and these will be valuable to me beyond my degree.

In the part of the office I worked in there were normally 2-3 other Placement Students and 4-7 experienced professionals (ranging from ages 26 - 60). This gave the office a really nice dynamic, I felt I learnt a lot more sat here than I would have if I'd been surrounded by interns. In our team we had a baking rota which meant every Wednesday someone had to bring in some cake, we did secret santa at Christmas and did lots of socialising outside of work as well like bowling, eating or drinking.

I think it was organised well.

At IBM you're supported in your development but it's about how much you're willing to put into it. I had training for the things that I needed to know about but there were also opportunities to learn about things outside my role. I was interested in learning about code as I thought this would be a skill desirable to employers, so I attended several workshops on it! I was also interested in mindfulness and neuro-linguistic programming so did some training on that. This was in no way related to my day-to-day role, just something I wanted to find out more about and my managers were more than supportive in me pursuing this.

I think IBM is a fantastic organisation to work for, not only for the cool stuff they're doing with artificial intelligence, security, cloud etc. but for their history and how inclusive and diverse they are. However, I want to pursue a career in Marketing and although there are roles in Marketing I would have to try and enter the business in an alternative role and then hope I could make this transition which isn't something I really want to do.

I based in the South Bank office in London which had about 100 placement students in! I lived with three other IBMers I found on the Facebook page we were all added to so my house was really sociable. Thursdays normally consisted of drinks at Topolski and then a trip to Walkabout for kareoke. Weekends were generally quite good for getting a lot of the interns together as well.

I would say that if you're living in London on placement (no matter what company it's at) you won't be saving anything but you will be able to have a good time and break-even. For me, this year was about the experience which I think is priceless and having the opportunity to try living and working in London for a year was amazing.

From being a student in Liverpool to a placement student in London the nightlife wasn't really comparable. London nights out were a lot less frequent due to the massive cost associated with them, although when we did go out it was a lot of fun!

Not really, I think a netball club has recently been set up but I wouldn't say there was a huge amount of stuff outside of work. That being said it's definitely feasible to set something up if you're passionate about it and I'm sure IBM would assist with this.