Commercial Management Support Review

My placement year was a great year which I enjoyed, I would highly recommend a placement year to anyone who was considering taking part.

Due to restructuring in the business and my job role I worked with a large number of people throughout various parts of the business. 90% of the people that I worked with were very helpful and valued my time and effort, however there were the odd few who thought they were far more important. I feel like I was valued as a real employee and not just an intern. All of my managers were enthusiastic in ensuring I had as much opportunity and scope of the business throughout my placement year.

The IBM placement scheme offers an extensive development scheme which helped with my day to day work, as well as developing further skills that I could use in the work place in future. I had a good relationship with my managers and colleagues which meant that they were more than happy to help me whenever I needed a little extra help or understanding.

At the beginning of my role I had a lot of spare time, however I was able to fill this with extra-learning and giveback opportunities. Throughout my placement I have become steadily busier as I have picked up multiple different tasks for different managers.

I was given a large amount of responsibility throughout my placement from calling out cost numbers to the business sector, to producing reports for Business Sector leads and other high level managers.

Unfortunately my role wasn't very relatable to my University Degree however it has helped me grow as a person and realise what I want to do in future employment. It has also helped me mature as a person and increase a lot of my employable skills.

A positive, friendly atmosphere which was far more relaxed than I had originally thought. It was a bit slow at times, however there were over 30 other placement students within my office who made it a bit more exciting.

The overall placement is set up very well and has a lot of reviews to check that you are progressing well. The amount of training I received on a general level showed that IBM value their placement students as proper employees.

There was constant opportunity for development and personal training.

There is a large number of graduate roles that are available which I am interested in. The company seems to have a great placement and graduate scheme.

The social scheme was good and there was a variety of students throughout my office and beyond.

Portsmouth (IBM's UK HQ) is quite a cheap place to live, rent was no more expensive than university accommodation. Socialising is quite cheap, pubs are reasonably priced and there are plenty of Weatherspoon's if money is an issue.

The nightlife in Portsmouth is quite good, there is a large amount of different clubs and bars throughout the area and taxis are very cheap allowing for quick transport to them all. It has a large student population as well so it's usually quite busy!

There was a lot of opportunity for outside activities, I was involved in the Football team and other giveback projects. As well as this, the students regularly organised nights out, weekend trips etc.