GBS UKI People Operations Team Review

I enjoyed the placement throughout the entire year, being able to work for a large international company and having a great community of interns and managers provided a brilliant backing for this year. The opportunities are there for you to grab to do something interesting outside of your daily role.

I felt incredibly valued by my colleagues and the company, I felt that I was seen not as a 1 year placement student at the bottom of the pile but seen on the same level as a permanent employee in regards to the respect and the communication with myself. I felt very comfortable and everyone was very happy to talk and help if I needed it.

The support that is available is brilliant with a network or EPM's (Early Professional Managers) of which you are assigned to one for the year, but can make use of any if you need any help and support. They have a system of reviews every 3 months so that there is an opportunity to have a check up on how you are going. Everyone is very happy to help and support you.

I was very busy on most days, as you would expect I did have quitter days and others where I hardly had time to chew my food. This is a very good part of it, very good to feel a certain amount of trust from the company and managers to give this amount of work and responsibility. There are however opportunities to get involved with other work outside of your role, depending on how much time you can spare these are great opportunities to do new things.

There was a high level of responsibility given early on, looking after tasks that I was responsible for straight away, I knew that the work that I was doing made a real impact and that it really mattered, the work I was doing. It was not the case of being given the grunt work or getting coffee for people.

There is a fantastic systems within the company which provides learning opportunities with plenty of online courses from a wide range of topics, from being able to get better at using Excel all the way to looking at the cutting edge technologies that IBM creates and sells. It is a great opportunity to build on your skills a spend any free time developing yourself.

In the office that I am in there is a professional atmosphere, not very serious or strict. I know that in other offices and in other areas there is other things that you are able to do. There is a table tennis table and a table football table downstairs in a more relaxed area of the office and a lot of the areas have hot desks so you can often find a seat in a different area.

IBM has been running these placements clearly for years and they have very good systems of everything from support for the placement students to organised events and a great system of communication that goes out to all the placement students to get them involved in everything that is going on at IBM.

IBM has a fantastic online learning platform which consists of learning courses from a 15 minute video on Quantum Computing all the way to courses that take several hours and will earn you a badge to show that you have gained that skill and developed in that particular area.

IBM has a system for internal graduate applications that is done around may time which is looked at separately from the external candidates, however they are very clear from the beginning that there is no guarantee of a graduate position, but people are very open to supporting any applications for future positions.

There is a very good social scene, there were events organised within the placement community by the interns, there were often drinks had after work on a Thursday. Due to the high number of placement students that the company takes there is always something to get up to in the time after work or a the weekends.

As someone who was able to live at home for my placement year, in London, I did not have to deal with the rent costs of London. IBM does have offices outside of London where people are placed, and if you work in a London location you do get more money to counteract this. London is expensive as is well documented but very nice and there is lots to do.

The nightlife was as you would expect from living and working in central London, there is always something to do of an evening or at the weekend without the need to really try. The only downside is the cost of doing it, it can be surprisingly expensive if you have not been out in London.

There is a lot to do in London, there are plenty of organised sports to do such as local football teams all over. If you want to find something to do you will be able to find it however obscure you think your sport of choice is.