Resource Management Review

IBM in general do their best to make sure every placement student has the best possible working environment. Ultimately it is what role you do and which account you work on in the UK (if you fall under the GBS business consultancy arm of IBM) that will be the main factor for enjoyment. The people on my account were really where most of the enjoyment was found as the service IBM provide to the client is really quite dull and inaccessible without a lot of accumulated technical knowledge.

I felt I had a clear role within my team that my manager set out for me and made clear throughout. This role was mostly admin and ad-hoc tasks but hey, that's what an intern does right. Throughout the year I did get the chance to be a team member in a bit of a long-running varied assignment outside of my role which was a good gig (this is something I got myself into: if you don't learn that things won't be offered on a plate for your professional development early on you'll not enjoy your year). I also had a long-running mini-project given to me by my manager which was basically to set up and transfer an old excel-heavy system into a new online portal-based one. So it was great to have a sense of ownership from that and to 'be essential', something that gave direction to my year and showed I was trusted by my team.

This is a tough one. My direct task manager was great; she never had an issue with telling me what she expected of me and different areas I would need to do training or improve on. She took an interest in how my year was going and the different intern events/opportunities offered outside of my work in her team. My people manager however offered less guidance. I don't want to be negative as there is a host of reasons to why I think this but the short of it is I had minimal contact with her throughout the year and zero contact if it wasn't one of the scheduled interactions (ie 3, 6 & 12 month reviews) or if it wasn't initiated by myself in a "oooo look at what i've done, notice me, give me grad job!" kind of way. She was a lovely individual and I do think she had the best intentions but having her being based in London and me based in the Midlands wasn't the best way to develop a good relationship (which we had drummed into us was the way to win at IBM placement year). Couple this with IBM's rigidity on expenses and I saw her a grand total of 2 times the year. So while I'd rate my email skills strongly I wouldn't say I managed to build any real working relationship that I could benefit from throughout my year and further.

It varied a lot. I'm a pretty relaxed person and would never wear it on my sleeve when I did have a lot on ('busy-brags' are widespread and is often employed as a way to gain eminence: Don't be that person). Some weeks I had loads going on and others I would end up watching a TEDtalk to fill time - Good thing about IBM is this counts towards your mandatory 40 hours annual training or 'THINK40' so colleagues wouldn't look at me like a freak when I did this. So really there is no excuse to be doing nothing as IBM has an environment where it's perfectly fine to say to any of your team or managers on the account "I have some extra bandwidth, you got anything I could do". Saying that, having nothing on meant I could do uni placement coursework or just online shopping.

I was surprised by this; actually quite a lot (in intern terms). As already mentioned I had my own mini-project where I had a clear influence over what direction it went in and my manager really trusted my views and the expertise I gained in all things in that area so she really took a back seat. A more general point: IBM is a huge (clunky) corporate machine and even in some cases senior managers don't always have the required level of responsibility to click their fingers and get something done. Always the case of things having to go up the chain of command for approvals, this takes time and just frustrates everyone involved. How much of this occurs at similar sized companies to 'Big Blue' I've not a clue, but it happens here!

errrrrrrrr, I'm now a Microsoft Excel-er. Seriously though, the nature of 'business role' is you've no clue where you'll end up and for me it was a place where my degree was as good as smarties (Economics so that's pretty impressive). IBM THINK40, as much as it get's slammed, is something I found really beneficial for a placements student. Do 40 hours of education and training in whatever area of the business you want and get universally recognised 'badges' you can even post on LinkedIn. a great way to also give a bit of direction to someone like me who has no idea about what career path they want to go down as can give insight into different career routes ie sales, marketing ect and give you a head start in training.

The general atmosphere was great, a lot better than other IBM locations and other companies I'd heard about from friends. I was lucky in that my team were all quite young and had good levels of banter. We had bake sales throughout the year, dress down days, Christmas celebrations and also had a good number of Indian IBMers who had come over to the work in the UK for a period of time so would have Indian snack days at random times: Who doesn't love a samosa? The office heating also refused to work at the coldest points of winter which was 'character building'.

IBM have an established and renowned placement programme. IBM foundation on the whole do a great job and years of taking on feedback have got them to this point of industry acclaim. An annual futures fair, loads of events (although mostly in London and not expenses ughhhh), webinars and ;loads of other opportunities to expand you horizons and the scope of where you take your placement year.

An above average amount. I can only compare it to what I have heard from friends who did placements at other companies. Expenses were covered for induction, a future careers event and in terms of time a lot was invested by Foundation to engage those on placement and offer that crucial 'value added' for us. It's also quite big for a company of IBM's size to set up a dedicated education portal like THINK40 and tell every member of staff they need to spend a working week in total each year to enhance themselves professionally.

There are loads of appealing opportunities within IBM since it's such a huge company there is a course for every horse. But it's not as simple as that, and there is only certain grad roles available each year so it really is luck of the drawer.

It was good after my induction in London and went steadily downhill after that. Being based in the Midlands most of the interns in our year decided to commute so weren't ever really up for post-work events. We still had a good social scene on our account of grads, apprentices and interns but as people left to work on other GBS accounts it only got quieter.

Cost of living was all pretty standard stuff, not £1 for a Jager like at Uni but not a small mortgage like in London.

A lot of uni towns & cities in the area like Leamington, Coventry & Birmingham but since most of the interns were either never up for/hard to pin down for social events like that I mostly just went out with uni friends throughout the year. Uni for is a bus away from work the morning after so didn't have to take holiday to do this. If you do have a night out in any of these cities you'll have a great one though.

Football every Wednesday. Free drinks every first Wednesday of the month at a local bar (it's a networking thing though so probs best not to get too trounced as I learnt).