Event Specialist Review

Within my role, I promoted all of our events internally within IBM and externally to clients if appropriate. I helped the team with any planning or execution that needed to be done and after the events I tracked the performance using agile tools. I reported back to the team the performance levels and aimed to increase the performance over my placement.

I have developed my Excel skills through various spreadsheets that I have kept up to date. I have learnt a new skill of video editing which I self-taught myself and was able to contribute to projects that were outside of my day-to-day role. I have advanced my communication skills in a professional work environment and also learnt to use all necessary for my role internal tools at IBM.

I was given much responsibility to others, yes. I had many different responsibilities that I had to do on a weekly basis and report back to my team and the wider team to ensure everyone was informed of our performance level and if we are on track with our targets. I had the responsibility solely of promoting all events internally to IBMers and Sales teams, as well as externally to clients.

I had weekly calls with my manager to discuss my work and to support me in my placement and the work that I was doing. There was a Marketing Intern community where I was able to ask my colleagues and interns if there was anything I was unsure of. IBM has internal communications channels so reaching out to my team was easy and effective.

Although this year was virtual, I still got a little taste of the IBM company culture through quizzes that I ran and some activities that were planned from the teams. I was lucky to go into the office 4 times in the year so I have gathered a little insight of what the office work like is like.

I enjoyed my year and the friends that I was able to make whist on placement. Once I learnt to manage my workload a little better and prioritise tasks, I was able to enjoy it even further. It has been a strange year working from home which is not easy, but the culture and the people have made it easier and more enjoyable than it would have been.

Yes

I would advise to manage and set the expectations from the start of your role. If the workload gets too much, which it sometimes can, then you can always explain to people that there are tasks you need to prioritise. I would also look to explore the wider IBM community outside of your role and most importantly to network and meet and make friends with new IBMers.