Management Information Developer Review

I have really enjoyed the working environment of IBM, The relaxed nature of Hursley offices has been great. I have learned a lot in the year, both personally and what it is like working for a big company.

Everyone I have met over my year at IBM have been very friendly. Some of my team members worked from home most of the time but I still managed to communicate and connect well with them.

My line manager works from home far away and comes into the office about once every 2 months, therefore I had limited guidance from him. This year I was unfortunate also as my Personal Development Manager went on sick leave 6 months into the placement and we were not appointed with a new one till month 11. Felt a bit on our own to fend for ourselves for 5 months.

There were times when work was busy and other times when I had nothing to do. Unfortunately the nothing to do outweighed the busy periods by quite a bit. I did however fill up my days with learning activities and volunteering in other projects.

The work that I was given, I had sole responsibility for and sometimes was required to lead others including our development team in India. I was in integral part of the team, and some projects carried out had an impact on how we worked in the future.

My personal skills developed greatly, networking/ prioritising/ communicating with different people. I also learned some technical skills for my job, working with one of IBMs reporting tools which wont really help me with me degree next year.

We had a good office atmosphere, fun and light hearted at times. When there was a lot of work to be done everybody kept to themselves and got on with it. We were allowed to listen to music through headphones which was good.

Foundation which is the section that controls all placement and graduate students was quite well organised. It wasn't good when we were without a PDM for 5 months as we had no one to go to with any problems or queries we had.

Foundation set up a couple of day courses to help us with presentation and personal skills. There is a database of online learning courses of which a lot are free that you can enroll on to expand your knowledge. There is a lot available to you, you just have to seek it out yourself.

IBM do not offer you a job straight away from your placement year. You have to apply just like any other grad wanting a job. However you may get fast tracked to miss the first round of assessment centres. I have applied, just waiting till September to hear back if I have bee successful for an interview.

There are a lot of placement students at most of the IBM locations. South Bank, North Harbour and Hursley with the most. We had a good student community, going out in Southampton clubbing and often going for meals or to pubs in Winchester after work.

As Southampton is a Student area, it was pretty similar expenses to being at uni.

There are a few clubs in Southampton to go to along with the university students of the city. Not that many in Winchester, mainly nice pubs for a quieter night.

There was a group or club for pretty much anything at Hursley