UK Schools & Universities Attraction Coordinator Review

I very much enjoyed my time at IBM on placement, the scheme provided a good mix of a challenging role, an active social life with plenty of other placement students, and numerous opportunities to participate in interesting projects outside of my daily role. There have been times that I got slightly bored with my day job, which I expected in my first full-time role, but as a whole I have enjoyed the year and found it very valuable.

I have been part of a great team this year, and one which was very close and friendly with each other. I have felt comfortable reaching out to those around me for help, as well as to socialize, and this creates a relaxed working environment. I would say that outside of my team, I did sometimes feel that some employees within the business look down on placement students, but most employees are very welcoming.

I have been given lots of support this year which has helped me settle in and learn my role, developing a lot of skills in the process. My managers have always been there to help, which is vital in such a huge company with complex processes. There were a couple of times that I felt a little unsupported during transitions phases between my managers changing, however I was able to carry on through these.

My role involved the coordination and organization of over 500 events across the academic year, so there was definitely enough to do on a daily basis to keep me busy. The nature of recruitment cycles and hiring schedules meant that there were some quiet periods through the year, however I was easily able to fill these with external projects and other opportunities on offer.

I was given a lot of responsibility in my role this year, being solely responsible for a huge number of events and also managing a large team of over 100 volunteers that attended these events. I was particularly surprised by the exposure we were given to very senior members of the company, and often found myself working alongside people much more experienced than myself, which was great for learning and feeling respected.

I believe the skills I have learned throughout my placement year have opened my eyes a lot to the workplace, and given me a better understanding of life in a large company. I have not only learned life lessons from living in London and having to manage my finances effectively, but also learned a variety of hard skills which can be transferred to any job in my future career. My role did not relate to my degree course in a significant way, so I do not think it will assist me in my studies particularly, but was very valuable as an experience and CV enhancement.

The atmosphere was friendly and there was a comfortable level of conversation and banter, but still silent enough to be able to be able to concentrate. We also had weekly cake days, which were a fun addition. However, I still got a very corporate feeling from the environment, and the office space itself was a very boring area of desk after desk, which when compared with the more creative areas of design and technology in the business, made me feel like I was in the most boring part of the company where little effort is invested for employee morale. Business roles do not need to be boring or stale, so I think the company is still a little bit old fashioned in this respect.

The scheme itself is a very well established set up, which has clearly been well thought out and receives a lot of investment. There is plenty of support and a very clear structure, and lots of opportunities which are created specifically for the placement scheme. One thing I thought could have been done better was how they introduce and explain the company and how it operates, as even towards the end of my placement I still had no idea what many parts of the company did exactly, and it was quite hard to find out as not many people knew much beyond their jobs either.

There are lots of online training courses available, and frequent refresher courses which are mandatory to keep all employees up to date on vital workplace codes of conduct. The company encourage you to explore your interests and will happily let you develop skills outside of your daily role, which makes you feel valued as an employee.

The company are unfortunately going through huge cuts at the moment, and for our year's cohort this has unfortunately meant that there will be very few graduate positions available for us to come back into after university. I have spent a lot of time this year exploring the company and where I might like to return, however it is very clear that the outlook is quite bleak and this has decreased motivation levels for a lot of the placement students.

With so many placement students working in the London office, the social scene is one of the strong aspects of this scheme. There are lots of nights out which are organized by placement students, as well as a standard weekly night where most placement students attend to get to know each other in the first few months. There are obviously endless places to go and things to do in London, so if you make close friends it is a great place to be in and explore.

I lived in Waterloo, which is very central and only a short walk to work, so I saved money on travel costs and rarely had to travel far to socialize in the city. The cost of living in London is one of the highest in the world, so it is no surprise that a placement student will not have much money to get by on, however if you do manage your money correctly you will at least have enough to live, eat, and socialize on a moderate basis. Although the salary is quite competitive in comparison to similar company schemes, I do think that salary levels for placement students should be higher across the market. It is a little unreasonable to be working a full time job with the kind of responsibility we have, and still earn less than £20k in such an expensive city.

London has some good nightlife to offer, but being such a big place it can sometimes be hard to plan a night out. If you are not careful, you can easily spend hours traveling around searching for a place to go, so make sure your nights are properly planned. The nightlife in London also closes surprisingly early, with very few places opening later than 12:00 or 01:00, and the drinking culture tends to lean more towards going for a drink straight from work then going home early, rather than starting later in the evening until early hours. There are plenty of live gigs and music acts going on all the time, and lots of great venues.

I would have liked to have seen a little bit more activity on offer for employees to get involved with after work, such as sports teams and societies. I did try to find out whether there were sports teams that compete on a regular basis, but all I discovered was the company involvement in 'The Corporate Games' - a sports event where lots of companies compete across different sports, however this was very expensive to take part in so wasn't really a viable option on a budget. Any activity I do take part in after work tends to just be something we have organized within our team.