Technical & Media Support Review
by IBM
This review was submitted over 4 years ago, so some of the information it contains may no longer be relevant.
Rating
-
The Role
2.0
-
The Company
2.2
-
The Culture
2.6
- 1. To what extent did you enjoy your work placement or internship?
- 2. To what extent did you feel valued by your colleagues?
- 3. To what extent were you given support and guidance by management/your supervisor(s)?
- 4. How busy were you on a daily basis?
- 5. How much responsibility were you given during your placement?
- 6. To what extent did/will the skills you developed, and training you received, assist you in your degree studies and beyond?
- 7. What was the general atmosphere in your office?
- 8. How well organised was the overall work placement or internship set up?
- 9. In terms of personal training and development, to what extent did the company or firm invest in you?
- 10. What were the perks on your work placement?
- 11. How appealing are future employment prospects within the organisation?
- 12. Was there a good social scene amongst any fellow placement students/colleagues?
- 13. What was the cost of living and socialising in the area you worked in?
- 14. What was the Nightlife like in the area you worked?
- 15. Were there many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work?
The Role
The majority of my internship was spent doing more menial work and very little room was given to expand and develop in different areas.
My direct team were all extremely friendly and I got to know lots of individuals across different teams through work and social opportunities. In this regard you cannot fault the scheme as it gives you numerous ways to meet other people.
While my team lead helped me find some work within the department and supported me during learning tasks my manager probably doesn't even know my second name....
The work was intermittent and unstructured. There were no tasks given that helped fill this space with no deadline but the work fluctuated between high & low volumes, to the point of being extreme.
The mentality of my department as a whole is that interns shouldn't have responsibility because the skills learnt will simply be lost at the end of the year. Therefore there was no real responsibility given
My internship year had very little bearing on my course as the roles selected for you often do not align with what you are studying but what IBM would have you do based on your personality instead of skillset. That meant that much work was irrelevant and would never be used outside the specific internship.
The Company
The morale of the department was always high, often doing activities and having pub lunches together!
From the Foundation (internship scheme) viewpoint it was highly organised, with regular training days and sessions put together, the Foundation scheme as a whole is a great one, however it's not them that monitor the day to day work and there is a lack of communication between the two, the development manager (foundation) or the task manager.
While they do not have budget to send you on courses outside of IBM to support you, they will allow for internal training and there is a great variety of courses and events being ran internally to IBM. It would be nice if there was some external certification available, even if it was simply discounted by being through IBM.
There is a relatively low percentage of internship to graduate hires so you need to keep this in mind.
The Culture
All of the interns banded together and socialised all the time to get through the year as it made the individual roles more bearable when you could moan about it to others!
While not cheap it was still do-able and everyone socialised well together. Accomodation prices were higher than other areas I have lived in before.
The nightlife was pretty good and we went out in various areas.
Not through the internship itself.
Details
Placement (10 Months+)
Information Technology
South East
May 2014
