Junior IT Business Analyst Review

My placement year was one of the most valuable and memorable experience to date. I throughly enjoyed the responsibility and opportunities that were given during my year at MSD. When I applied to MSD, I did not realise how large the company was; I had the opportunity to network with colleagues globally. It was fantastic to understand the pharmaceutical industry and gain exposure of understanding the processes within the company.

I was one of the youngest members on the site where I started based in Milton Keynes. I was welcomed by my team from my first day and they were so helpful throughout the year. Staff on site were extremely friendly and I was able to develop really good stable relationships with them. I felt valued throughout the year by my colleagues as I was always involved in department and site projects.

I was extremely fortunate to be assigned a mentor who would up-skill me throughout the year at MSD. My manager was extremely supportive and took time to ensure that the goals that I envisioned were met. For any queries and feedback, I was able to speak to my mentor who would provide me with consistent feedback. I believe this helped me strengthen my skill set which meant I was able to gain exposure of more projects and responsibilities.

The activities you envision to complete on a day as a Business Analyst could change. Although I used to plan my days in advance by keeping a note of activities that I had to complete in my diary, there could be situations where my activities would have to be pushed back as other priorities could come in e.g. a technical issue that may be business critical and requires solving quickly. In any role, there could be a busy workload and this tended to occur when IT were planning a roll out for an application/system. In terms of days that were not as busy, I would try and be pro-active by completing training modules so I strengthened my knowledge in other areas which would benefit me in being involved in other projects.

Fortunately, on my placement year, I was given many responsibilities in the year. I was responsible for rolling out an IT application on site which required going through the project cycle where I was required to complete planning alongside liaising with the stakeholders. In addition to this, I worked with another placement student to organise site visits. There were many opportunities to have responsibilities, especially within IT as you could be responsible for a department when rolling out an IT system.

I believe the skills that you learn on your placement year are invaluable to how you can use them when you start your career. You develop many soft skills such as organisation, email etiquettes, prioritisation, communication skills including presenting to collegues. In addition to this, I was able to understand applications that are used for a corporate business alongside gain exposure of business processes.

Our site had offices as opposed to an open plan working environment. This was great when trying to focus and completing work. I was fortunate to share the office with my mentor which made it a lot easier to catch up on my progress alongside ask any questions whilst I was completing work. Also, I would visit my colleagues in their offices daily and occasionally when we had a 'coffee break'. The site in Hoddesdon uses an open plan working environment which I think is great to develop good relationships with the team and other departments close by.

MSD generally have a good structure to the placement scheme. HR liaised with all departments try to arrange for the students to start on the same date so an induction day could be held. On the induction day, I was able to meet other students in Hoddesdon alongside given an information pack regarding the year. Over the year the activities included site visits in Cramlington, Hoddesdon and Milton Keynes which was great as each site focuses of different areas. This gave us students further insight of understanding how large MSD are as a company. The scheme also have interview & CV review with managers which is great to prep for when applying to graduate roles.

Generally, MSD do invest in the students completing the placement. I was given opportunities to travel to Prague for a technology summit. This was a great event to see what technologies are available to improve processes within the business. However, a lot of the training is learnt on the job. I was able to see development on these skills throughout the year. I would have regular meetings with my manager and mentor to discuss my progress and go through my targets.

MSD have recently introduced graduate schemes for students who are interested in Marketing and Commercial areas. This is a new scheme where they have plans to include more business areas in the scheme. I would definitely consider returning to MSD as a graduate as I enjoyed my placement year with them. In addition to this, MSD continuously look at developing employees which matches my career aspirations as I hope to climb the ladder to take on further responsibilities. Currently the scheme only caters for graduates who are interested in Marketing and Commercial areas, so for those students who want to stay within IT at MSD may find it slightly difficult to return unless there were opportunities available.

On my site, there were only 2 placement students. We would meet up occasionally to have lunch together. In terms of a my IT team, we would regularly go out for team meals including celebrating our successes.

I believe the living costs in Milton Keynes can be expensive if you decided to live by yourself. Although, many students will look into house shares which will reduce the cost of living. I decided to travel to Milton Keynes daily, so my costs were fuel, maintenance of the car and car insurance (although this route can work out to be expensive also).

I did not really get a chance to see this, but I assume that there were many clubs and bars that had events on weekends.

MSD had a few opportunities to get involved with activities. Many of them involved sports. Our site has a heated swimming pool where employees could bring their friends and families on site during weekends in the summer.