Community Relations Assistant Review

The job was fun throughout the year, I learnt so much and felt like it was my best experience throughout University.

The team was small and very close. My work had a lot of responsibility and I had a great team around to support my work.

Whenever I needed support it was there but my manager also left me to it at times to help me learn how to use my initiative.

There was enough work for me to getting on with throughout my placement and I felt like I had a good amount of work on. I was rarely bored in the office as there were so many tasks to be getting on with.

For the areas I was given I was basically given management positions. It was my job to liaise with key external audiences to move projects/events along. After 2-3 months my manager left me in charge of major programmes for IBM's involvement across the UK. I often had to consult with him for major decisions but I was certainly able to make a lot of these myself.

The skills were extremely valuable and have helped me become more employable as my applications have been taken seriously by companies post employment. If the market wasn't so tough I feel I'd have sealed a high level graduate role at a large company. I have been getting interviews regularly and many of the companies point to my experiences at IBM.

We worked closely with the public sector team and the office atmosphere was very positive. Although I did feel like I was being closely watched throughout I didn't feel this was a problem as I always busy!

Compared to other placements I've been on we were pretty much left to it for the year. The graduate team didn't really encourage the Graduate Scheme for after and this was quite surprising.

I was sent on a Fundamentals of Integrated Marketing course which linked directly to my degree. This made me feel completely valued by my manager as he set this up personally to my requirements.

For me I didn't want to return as I knew it wouldn't be a similar role to the one I had. I wasn't really aware of what they offered in graduate schemes and didn't feel motivated to return to anything different other than the role I was involved with.

Literally the best group of friends I could have hoped for - made several friends for life throughout the year. Working in London probably helped but it was extremely fun at evenings and weekends and we organised so many social events including a Christmas party on a Thames Boat, Fancy dress rugby trips, hired out London nightclubs etc. The fun we had was pretty much endless at weekends.

Soooo expensive to rent in London but it really was worth every penny. Socialising cost a bomb but we did receive London weighting allowance.

Worked in Waterloo so everything decent in London was either a walk away or a 10 minute tube away.

Mostly organised by the other Placement students but there were some activities organised by the company.