Cognos Support Analyst Review

Working for a company such as IBM is quite an eye-opening experience. While it depends on the role you get assigned, in my case I was given loads of responsibility and was seen as one more person in the team – not as a student. This made the placement more unique, as you were completely immersed with the team.

In the team, I felt very valued by my colleagues. We relied on each other in doing a good job and worked very close one from another. You are given loads of opportunities to shine, so it's important to focus on what you're good at, perfect it, and see how far you can go.

While your Task Manager will be always with you and show you the role inside out, the Early Professional Manager is the person in charge of your well-being and ensuring that you are happy in your role. We had meetings with our EPMs to ensure that are enjoying your placement and learning. Sometimes you wish you had more time with your EPM, as often you won't see that person in months. Therefore, it's important to maintain contact through email and messaging.

Very busy. I'd say my main role was a bit too busy, in a way that you could not get involved in other initiatives that other interns got involved – perhaps those had a bit too much spare time. Not being busy was one of my main concerns as I wanted to learn as much as possible. I was given a very challenging job and managed to learn a lot from it.

Quite a lot. My main role involved direct communication with customers all over the continent. You chose how much responsibility you want. While throughout the first few weeks you get coached to ensure you do the job right, as weeks go by you'll start doing more things without someone having to review your work.

Not much. I do Computer Science at University and while the skills I learnt very very technical, they were too specific to IBM products. If I was to work in the same role, then I would have loads of skills that would be valuable for the job itself, but the skills learnt will not help on my degree as much as it will for my career.

Depending on the office you end up in, there will be a better or worse atmosphere. The bigger the office tends to be, the more interns you'll find and therefore the better atmosphere that office will have. Southbank and Hursley tend to have the best intern atmosphere. However, there's always a trade off and in smaller offices you always get to be closer to those interns. Whatever the office you get given you'll enjoy the location in its own way.

Very well organised. IBM is popular for having interns/graduates so they have an entire organisation within the company (known as Foundation) that helps you during the year. They provide mentoring, as well as plenty of giveback opportunities. Everything is organised and you have always someone to speak to if you're not learning or enjoying as much in your main role.

Personally, the role I was involved in involved plenty of training and knowledge necessary. Thus, it was very important to get the right training in order to perform the task efficiently. However, any IBMer has access to a learning platform that you can use to learn about other stuff you might be interested. Some learning courses provide badges at the end that you can add to YourAcclaim and take with you after the placement.

IBM makes it very easy for you to apply back as a graduate after your placement is done. While it is true that you need to get good results in your placement in order to get a graduate job, you get fast-tracked to the final interview. This means there is no need to repeat an Assessment Centre or have to do extra tests.

As described in the previous question about atmosphere in the office, the social scene amongst placement students was very good. You'll meet people you'll really like, as well as others you won't like as much. While sometimes you'll need to work with those people you don't like as much, you do take quite a few friends with you when you end your placement.

Your salary as an intern is relatively low, so if you are living in London you can't really spend much money as most of it will go in rent and bills. So while you do end up with loads of friends, you can't socialise as much because London is very expensive to live in if your salary is not to the standard of living.

Nightlife was very good. London is an amazing and vibrant city with plenty of choice. While it is very expensive to go out, there are loads of things to do and plenty of clubs to go to. Public transport is also very good during the night on weekends. You will never get bored if you live in London, that's for sure!

Yes. While it's important to get to know people in order to get involved in those activities, it's not hard to show interest and get other people to find you if you're looking to do more stuff than your normal job. No one will come knocking at your door with the best opportunities, but if you speak to people about what interests you, then that person might know a person looking for someone like you!