Technical Support Analyst Review

Overall, I had a work placement that gave me the opportunity to grow, develop my skills and build my business acumen. That being said my work placement was a year of two halves. The first 5 months I gained a wealth of experiences and had plenty of opportunities to expand my job role which meant I really enjoyed this part of my year. However, the remainder of my time (due to the GDPR) became solely processing Data Subject Access Requests, preventing any other opportunities due to the legal priority it took. Therefore, I found the remaining 7 months quite hard, and for me rather unengaging as this was not the role I had been brought in to do, and ultimately prevented me from getting involved in other things and carrying out my contractual job role. However, I do want to say that had it not been for DSAR’s this section would have been ranked a lot higher!

I felt extremely valued by my colleagues, there was a lot of responsibility in my role which meant you were trusted and your input was valued. Colleagues came to me and asked for assistance in carrying out their roles (e.g. supplying data, organising logistics...). They also want your opinion/input on what they are working on which makes you feel very valued. There is also a great community within the HR team, even the extended one!

I felt that this year my team had to very much manage ourselves as we were given very little guidance from our manager; we were very independent. We had to allocate jobs within the team (luckily, we got on so this wasn't a problem - but may cause issues if this was not the case) and personally I felt very little support from my manager (however this could be due to them being remote - not in the office) when I was struggling in the role and needed some guidance.

I was extremely busy within my role when it changed to being 'DSAR Support'. I usually worked over my contractual hours as there was always a large amount to do. I like to be busy as it means you constantly have something to do, and something to learn about. However, in this case I felt the team had too little manpower given the workload, so the tasks became overwhelming.

I was given a huge level of responsibility; much more than I expected as an intern! It was great the company trusted me with legal deadlines and it makes you feel incredibly trusted as the impact of you making a mistake is a considerable financial cost or reputational damage. Whilst I enjoyed the high level of responsibility I was given, I chose this role in order to gain experience in HR, and I have felt that for the past 7 months I was a member of the Legal team; this being an area I don't feel comfortable in due to having no legal background - therefore the responsibility I felt was inappropriate.

The skills and training I have gained at IBM will be invaluable to me. They have developed my business acumen and helped me apply my theoretical knowledge (gained at university) to a real life business context. Skills such as design thinking and HR accelerator skills will not only help me with University but my graduate career! IBM's education is second to none and I have learnt a breadth of information that I can use every day, in a multitude of contexts.

Everyone was very positive and friendly - always up to chat and say hello. I made amazing friends in the office who I will be keeping in touch with. During busy times when many people were on client site it could feel a little empty, but most of the time this was not the case and I had a great network of people surrounding me.

There was a program solely set up for intern students which provided the emotional support needed, educational skills you wanted to develop and generally made sure everything was going okay. You can tell they are used to dealing with a large population of interns! This being said, I feel they could utilise their set-up more. I only saw my Early Professional Manager at set times throughout the year and there didn’t seem to be a close relationship between foundation and my actual business area (HR) as they were telling me different things at times.

The company provided training throughout the year using online education and drop in workshops. I felt they were invested in my personal growth, even if you weren't intending to stay in the company for a graduate role. They only time I didn't feel as supported and invested in was when my role became DSARs and the job became repetitive so there was little room for growth, and in my opinion not a lot was done to rectify this.

Routes back into IBM are quite limited as they only have a very small HR programme you can apply for as an intern and then the only other option is to come back as a consultant. Neither of these roles suited what I want in a graduate role so I won't be applying back. The schemes they do offer are good just not the right fit for me.

As I was on a client account away from IBM offices I very rarely go to meet up with other placement students in the company. I already knew a few other students from my university, however if I hadn't then I would have had very little interaction with the other students unfortunately.

The choice is between living in Leaminghton Spa and Warwick, For a single room (en suite) they are both expensive - Leighton more so, but if you can find people to house-share you can go down to £350 or so per person per month. Leaminghton Spa en suite is £600 (bills included) but is a better location for going out (no clubs in Warwick).

In Warwick the nightlife is limited to very few clubs and mainly pubs (spoons is always a good choice) but if you want to go to a proper nightclub - go to Leaminghton. There are a lot of students from Warwick university that go to Leaminghton. If you value this it might be a good idea to live in Leaminghton not in Warwick

There were a lot of opportunities available to placement students outside of your day to day role - these included events and conferences, volunteering in helping out at internal and external events, side projects, and even the chance to work at Wimbledon. Most of these tended to be in the London area.