Recruitment Analyst Intern Review

I enjoyed my placement year from start to end. I have learnt many skills and technical abilities that I would never have been exposed to if I did not undertake a placement year. I feel my placement year has truly added value to me, my studies and my employability. Huge thanks to IBM!

Whether it be your placement peers, task manager or executive, everyone at IBM values your ideas and concepts and takes these on board when trying to design and develop a solution to a problem. I felt extremely valued at the end of year when I delivered a whole day workshop reviewing the end to end process. This allowed me to show my ideas as well as discuss other contributions from my colleagues.

At IBM you are assigned a task manager that works with you on a daily basis. Even though my task manager worked part-time, I found that she was extremely supportive and was able to guide as and when I needed, she also held regular one to one meetings to ensure I was on track, set goals and monitor my progress. You are also assigned an early professional manager who acts as your mentor throughout the year and reviews you at 3 month intervals. They are always on hand to chat and help resolve any other issues you may have.

As I worked in recruitment, it was common to have really quiet periods as well as really busy periods. During busy periods, my colleagues were able to help with the workload. During 'down-time' I was able to support my colleagues in return as well as further my training in areas I wanted to develop such as technical skills.

I was given a large level of responsibility during my placement. My main responsibility was taking candidates from application to job offer and everything along the way. I was the main facing for any applicants and the voice for any queries they had. Alongside this I also worked with the graduate programme lead and managers on a daily basis.

As my background is in manual labour, having the opportunity to work in recruitment for a year really helped to develop an entire different skillset and range of skills I otherwise would not have been exposed to. This will help me when I return to my university studies as well as in future jobs and careers.

Whenever you enter the office you are greeted with smiles and a great atmosphere. As the building is open plan, it means you are able to move around and work in different areas depending on your working needs. The use of hotdesking is also great as it means you get to network and work with a range of people around you.

The placement team were really organised. When I went through the recruitment process I was studying in Australia, the team were really understanding around this and the time differences and were really accommodating. The induction was well structured and equipped us well for the start of our placement. The foundation early professional manager is a great touch to ensure you maintain contact with the placement team throughout the year.

My direct team worked really well to ensure I was fulfilling my potential and there are lots of self sign-up initiatives where you can get involved depending on what your interests are. I also took part in a 2 day digital skills academy to develop my technical skills - everyone that provides training and support really invests their time and effort into their programmes.

My placement year with IBM has been a great start to developing a future career. As I worked with recruitment directly, this gave me a great opportunity to see the large range of roles available that IBM offer at a graduate level. I have networked with graduates and I would look forward to potentially rejoining IBM on their graduate scheme.

At the beginning of the placement year, a Facebook group was set up amongst all joiners and each cohort would usually go for drinks across the road after induction took place. This was a great start for socialising and then later throughout the year all interns tended to go out for lunch or sit with eachother at lunchtimes.

As IBM's office is in London, it is probably one of the more expensive places to work in the UK. However, that being said, there are plenty of deals around for example Southbank food markets, and a lot of places and restaurants along the southbank do offer discounts when you show your IBM discount card.

London nightlife is great but it can be expensive. A lot of placement students tend to have a few drinks at eachothers flats before going out to save a bit of cash! If drinking isn't your thing there are plenty of late-night restaurants and indoor mini golf / cinemas and activities to do instead.

This was not something I actively seeked to do as I did commute into London each day and so didn't have too much time in London to get involved with opportunities outside of work. With that being said, there were always initiatives such as sports teams to get involved in outside of work, either with or without your colleagues.