HR Partner Support Review

I had a great time at IBM. I went in not knowing where exactly my passions in HR were and wanting a generalist role to be able to experience as many HR areas as I got. I also wanted to experience what it was like to work in a fast-paced company, and I definitely got everything I intended out of my placement and more!

The team I worked in was very senior but despite me being an intern they put full trust in me straight away. I was given a lot of responsibility and accountability and they all treated me like a regular employee who had been there for years.

My task managers & early professional manager were always very supportive of me and the things I wanted to do, both in and out of my job role. My task managers gave me great projects that opened so many doors for me, and gave me critical feedback where I needed it. The amount of responsibility they gave me was quite daunting at times but exactly what I wanted to experience.

Always very busy, very rarely and quiet periods. My role was on a project basis and there was always something to work on next. Overtime was fairly regular.

So much responsibility, as mentioned before, my team did not treat me any differently to a regular employee, and never made me feel inferior.

I've learned so much more about HR than I did before, and feel like I understand it a lot more now, the processes, what each function does, and how important it is to the business and its strategy. I will definitely be able to use my placement year for my final year project, and I have picked up valuable skills & lessons that I will continue to draw on in the future.

The Portsmouth office is very quiet. Everybody is lovely but it is a quite 'heads-down' atmosphere as everyone is quite busy.

The way your placement goes at IBM is mainly down to you and your task managers, rather than it being a similar structure for all. My task managers always kept me very busy with varied projects, but I still had opportunities to do things outside of my job role. There are at least 3 placement reviews at IBM.

Training & development is available in many places at IBM. They have an online learning channel with limitless learning modules. My second line manager regularly sent emails to the team with information & learning he thought would be useful for us. My team always brought me to meetings and events that they felt would be useful for me to learn and experience.

There is a HR intern program where you can get a HR grad program after you graduate, you can also apply back to consulting.

It's definitely up to the interns themselves. I had a great time this year, and it helped a lot that I lived close to a lot of the interns.

Rent can be quite expensive, it's best to look for a house and apply early so that you can choose to live with other IBM interns.

....good enough!

Yep, a few interns I knew would play netball, golf, and one joined a club at the university. The Portsmouth office also have a social volleyball league that quite a few of them play in.