European Communications Co-ordinator Review

It was an enjoyable role but it quickly became repetitive. There were other opportunities available which could be used to make the role more interesting, such as volunteering at local events.

Very welcoming and friendly group of individuals from all over Europe and North America at times. My close team was fully virtual but we had weekly conference calls to stay in touch.

My manager was very helpful when she had the time. But unfortunately due to her busy schedule it wasn't always possible for her to hand over work to me as thoroughly as she would have liked.

This varied dramatically unfortunately. There were times when I was wondering what to do and other times when I did not leave the office until late at night. This was mainly during periods where I was covering other interns from my department.

Overall the responsibility in my role was not that great but when I covered fellow interns, the responsibility in these roles was much higher and had a real affect on the success of our department.

Overall the skills I gained were substantial but the majority of my experience was based around soft skills such as email creation and relationship management with Business Partners, and so I did not gain a great amount of new technical skills.

The general atmosphere was quite dull in the office but the 30+ interns made up for this by setting up bar crawls and other events throughout the year.

The placement scheme at IBM is very well organised and forms part of the dedicated department for recruiting inexperenced hires. The company takes on over 300 interns each year and so there are plenty of opportunities available.

There were several events set up throughout the year with the purpose of improving our skills. This included requiring to give a presentation at the 9 month stage in front of your HR manager and task managers.

The graduate jobs at IBM appear to be mainly based around sales roles and for example there are no marketing or finance roles available for next year. However there are over 500 graduate roles in total.

There was a great social scene amonst the placement students at the Bedfont office. We also got involved in a charity bar crawl event which involved other large comapanies in the London area.

The cost of living in the Heathrow area was quite reasonable and it was the ideal distance away from central London as far as you could get there within 45 minutes if you needed, but we weren't close enough to be affected by a significant increase in the cost of living.

The Heathrow area was quite poor for nightlife and so we would often travel further afield to places like Kingston and Windsor where the clubs were better. We also had the option of going out in central London if we wanted to go to the most expensive clubs.

There was a five a side football match on a Tuesday and a Thursday that most of the interns got involved in, but other than that there was little in the way of activities outside of work.