Project Analyst Review

I have thoroughly enjoyed my placement at IBM and have loved the opportunities that have been offered to me over the year. Although my workplace is quiet, the group of people I have been surrounded with have provided great support and encouragement throughout my placement.

I have felt very valued by the vast amount of colleagues I am surrounded by at work on a daily basis. Senior members are never shy to give praise when it is due, and this is really encouraging from a placement student perspective.

I have been given a lot of support by multiple members of my workplace. However, I have been positioned within two separate teams within the account, one of which is based in Southend (I am based in Preston), and this sometimes causes barriers between myself and my manager there as communication is less frequent.

I have been incredibly busy. Due to the nature of the account I work on, and the size of the account, work load is never low. This may seem slightly negative, however I can only be glad and thankful for this, as I have been thrown in the deep end and really come to terms with the responsibility and pressures of a real full time job. My only concern is that this may have hindered my opportunities to get involved with giveback opportunities which would have been of interest to me.

I have been given a great amount of responsibility throughout my placement. I had been allocated onto a project which was very small to begin with, however has now doubled in size and is only expanding by the week. As I am responsible for tracking the finances for this project, I have taken ownership for a large majority of financial reporting, contract tracking and flowdowns to subcontractors.

I believe the skills I have picked up throughout my placement will greatly affect my performance when continuing with my degree. Not only have I grown significantly in confidence, but I have developed my excel skills to an advanced level and developed a deep understanding of the importance of business results and client success.

General atmosphere in my office was rather quiet, with many of the work desks remaining unfilled. However, those who were surrounding me were always fun and engaging, always ensuring we kept a friendly and light atmosphere throughout the day. I worked alongside other members of a similar age (20s), but was also surrounded by senior partners, which really helped to keep work interesting and balanced.

The internship was well set up from the start. The induction was well organised, placement journals were issued for all members which allowed us to keep up to date with checkpoint goals and to keep a reminder to collect feedback from colleagues whenever necessary. We had 3/6/9/12 month reviews which kept us on track and in line with placement standards and gave us the opportunity to reflect on our performance throughout the year with our EPMs.

IBM provide a lot of training courses, activities and workshops to help employees not only develop their skills, but to also enhance their knowledge and core values of IBM. These are very useful ways of getting an insight into different areas of the company which you may not usually be able to learn about within your specific job role/project.

Future employment prospects are very appealing within IBM. There is a lot of encouragement for placement students to seek employment within IBM following the placement year, and they often set up workshops and calls to enable placement students to listen to current graduate career experiences and to gain a better insight into the opportunities and perks of IBM as a full time employee.

The social scene has not been great throughout the year at IBM with fellow placement students. Being based in a smaller location up north has meant that I have had no contact with any other interns over the country other than those based in the same office as me. This is a great shame as the majority of placement students are based in London, where the social scene will be a lot busier.

The cost of living has been reasonable within the area I work in. I was able to find a house rather quickly and at a good price. Socialising has been rather good outside of work. On many occasions we have participated in local pub quizzes and travelled to nearby cities (eg Manchester) to visit the IBM office there and to enjoy socialising afterwards.

Nightlife in the area I worked was rather poor. The clubs were very cheap, however it was only ever lively on Tuesday and Wednesdays, which is not ideal for work. Nightlife on the weekends was rather poor, unless you were willing to go to the more expensive bars to enjoy some nicer drinks and a better atmosphere.

There have been numerous work social events outside of work, from Wednesday drinks, to BBQs and the Yorkshire 3 Peaks Challenge. The Wednesday drinks are a good opportunity for work colleagues to enjoy casual drinks outside of the workplace and to socialise with members of the account that you may not usually get the chance to talk to - great networking opportunity!