Innovation Analyst Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my placement year with IBM, working on the Nationwide client site allowed me to interact with a diverse range of people and build close relationships with these individuals. This strengthened my team working skills as well as communication skills and I would highly recommend a placement year.

I felt extremely valued by the company, the client site I was working at and all my colleagues. As I was contributing valuable work and making change I was highly favoured during my placement. As I was responsible for a key web application used by the clients. My role included updating and developing the database, carrying out front and back end changes and carrying out requirement gathering with users of the web application. In addition to this I built quite a strong relationship with colleagues during work socials creating higher value.

The extent to which support was given was quite limited / alright in my opinion. This was maybe because I didn't reach out as much for support. But at times I felt like more could be done to support the interns. for instance it would have been nice to see some sort of mentorship scheme between permanent staff and inters allowing us to gain help as well as shadow and understand the different roles In and around IBM.

on a daily basis I am always busy, I utilise the fill duration of my day to complete work working on multiple projects and prioritising task I can get done within the day. Although I am busy most of the time I always make time for the client and for things which are important. In addition I would argue that after 5pm I try find a perfect balance between my social and work life.

I was given a lot of responsibility during my placement year, having to be responsible for maintaining and further developing a key staffing tracker website used by the clients. In addition to this I was first line of contact if anything technical wasn't working effectively or efficiently having to make changes and updates to systems in order to make peoples work easier and more meaningful.

The skills learned over my placement year will be extremely crucial in helping me successfully pass my degree and achieve a good final grade. Both soft skills such as communication, organisation and motivation will all come useful when developing worth ethic and technical skills such as html, php, sql and cloud development will all be useful in my actual work.

The general atmosphere in my office was collaborative, yet allowed everybody to get on with whatever work they needed to alone. I knew I had the support of my fellow interns, as well as the team manager if I needed it. We regularly were able to raise any complaints about things that may have been broken such as the blinds or air conditioning.

I don't feel that the overall work placement was very organised because some interns did not have set work to do, and often had to hunt for work to do. I feel that if the structure had been more organised, they may have been able to learn more- however this was not the case for me as I had taken over someone else's role.

I don't feel that they invested in me personally, but they did invest in the training and development for all employees. IBM offered a learning portal that I used to my advantage and allowed me to complete courses in different areas to further and develop my skills. In addition to this, there was training sessions in and around my client site office.

Future employment prospects within the organisation are appealing as the skills that I have learnt and developed from my placement can be transferred into other roles, e.g. the technology consultant grad scheme. IBM develops a genuine connection with its employees, and this is shown in the opportunities provided to staff.

There was a good social scene amongst the fellow interns at my client site. We had whole team plus fellow intern socials fortnightly, ranging from dinners to drinks. This allowed us to know each other on a personal level, thus increasing rapport between us at work. I thoroughly enjoyed them.

I was based in Swindon, however I had to relocate from London. My rent came to £500 a month, with a weekly travelcard of £20. I found this relatively cheap, as in London the rates are much higher. Drinks and food were cheaper also. I would recommend relocating for a placement.

The nightlife in Swindon was okay. Not much went on, on the weekend however pubs and bars did seem to boom with locals. I prefer nightlife at university or in London, however if I did want to go out on the weekend; I knew that somewhere would provide me with a semblance of home.

Outside of work, me and the fellow interns did do some activities together, such as Badminton or go to the gym. However, as the area did not have much to offer outside work hours (as most shops had closed by 5/6 pm) there was not a great variety of choice.