DSC Compliance Analyst and Resource Management Specialist Review

I thoroughly enjoyed by placement at IBM and made amazing friends in the location I was based. Although I initially struggled in my job role as it was quite complex and required a lot of technical knowledge, I can easily say I have learned a vast amount about Business, IT and the importance of providing secure and compliant services. Overall, I enjoyed my role as it was very challenging and therefore kept me interested, however would not apply back to the same role as personally I would like to have a more business orientated role than a technical one.

My colleagues at IBM were brilliant and we got along very well. My team consisted of 2 other placement students, my Task Manager and some employees from Poland. My manager and 2 placement colleagues were very friendly and I very quickly began to feel like part of a family. Although I never got to physically meet my Polish team members, they were also very kind and friendly, and I found it very easy to communicate with them.

The previous interns in my job role were to handover their work to myself and the 2 other interns before they left IBM. Although my manager was helpful if we ever needed any guidance, it was largely the previous interns responsibility to teach the new interns about the role/department. At first I did feel like I was not being supported enough and there were many things myself and the 2 other placement interns had to learn ourselves, but reflecting back on my year, as my department required a lot of technical knowledge I now feel that it was not possible for me to grasp everything right at the start of my placement, and that it takes experience rather than education to know about the job role properly.

My days varied. There would be times in which I was loaded with work and couldn't finish all my tasks within one day, and other days where I was very free, however I was never overloaded with work or extremely bored and it was usually balanced.

I was given a lot of responsibility within my team, especially when the head of my department asked me to come up with potential strategies to reach our 2015 labor targets. I also hosted many important resource management calls with important Delivery Project Executives, and actively participated in keeping my department's compliance position in check and prepared for Audit.

Although my job role was not directly related to my University degree, the skills I learned at IBM are skills for life and can be applied to any kind of environment whether it be professional or personal. IBM is packed full of opportunities to expand your network, learn more about the latest technology, and offers many educational courses on cyber security, programming etc. The skills I have learned from my placement will definitely help me in my degree and in any future jobs, and I am very glad I decided to work at IBM for my placement year.

There were days when the office was very quiet, and days in which it was super busy. As my job was not a client facing one, there was quite a chilled out environment and some of the employees would regularly bring in cupcakes/snacks for everyone in the office

The placement scheme was good in the sense that no student was left alone and there was always someone to contact if any help was needed. We had regular 'reviews' throughout our placement in which we caught up with our Professional Development Managers and spoke to them about what we were up to, goals for the rest of placement etc. The foundation team was in regular contact with us through email/phone calls and I found it easy to ask any placement related questions or ask for support.

The foundation team have made it clear that there is a separate budget allocated to us for travel expenses when shadowing/attending events/volunteering and any courses we wanted to participate in, however sometimes did not approve expenses and that limited the amount of education/training we could do. Besides that the company regular hosts 'lunch and learn' sessions on different topics, allows employees to shadow and mentor other IBMers, and encourages all of its employees to complete 40 hours of education using the 'Think40' Tool.

It is very possible to get back into the organization after completing a placement year, however it is not guaranteed as the graduate scheme is very competitive and often, employers want to give the students who did not do a placement, a chance to work in the company.

Yes there was a very active social scene in my location (Warwick) with several socials occurring each month for example going to Alton Towers, going to the cinema, playing sports, and nights out/dinners.

It was quite cheap however taxi's in Warwick a little bit expensive. Lot's of lovely reasonable restaurants in Leamington

Reasonable, few decent places to go in Leamington.

Yes however most of the opportunities were in London