Commercial Finance Analyst Review

It was good to get an experience of life in a big corporation such as IBM. The placement scheme is well run and there are plenty of opportunities within the company.

I was part of a large outsourcing team which contained 3 placement students and this helped a lot with settling into the role and the day-to-day life within the office. Within the team it always felt like your work was being appreciated, with feedback readily available.

In IBM you are given two types of manager, a Professional Development Manager (PDM) and a task manager. My PDM was very helpful in providing reviews and any information I needed outside of my job role. My task manager was not based in the same location as me so face-to-face contact was quite limited.

Unfortunately my role turned out to be quite quiet on most days once I had got to grips with all the tasks. This meant I had a lot of time where there wasn't really anything to be done and quickly became tedious. They have no reduced the number of placement students in the time back down to 2 instead of 3 to make the workload more even for everybody.

The good thing about the role was that it wasn't your typical intern role of organising meetings and making the tea! The tasks that I was required to do were often sent out to the senior leadership team on the account or used for our forecasting. I was also responsible for a major quarterly client file that got sent out to our customer.

There is a large emphasis on giveback and volunteering opportunities within the company. This ranges from helping to run assessment centres to CV and application writing workshops.

As there are a large number of placement students within the company, the general office atmosphere was very good. There is always someone to talk to and make the day go quicker, and there is a good social feel at lunch and during education sessions or other workshops.

The foundation team who run the placement scheme do a very good job in setting up the inductions for the new starters and then also running events throughout the year.

Foundation ran various workshops to do with CV writing and help with application forms. Also the PDM is there to help with any queries you have.

As a placement student you are given the chance to apply early for the graduate programme although there is no guarantee you would get a job.

Due to the large number of placement students at North Harbour, there is a very good social scene. This starts from the induction when there is a night out planned for the new starters so that people can get to know each other.

I was living at home but Portsmouth is roughly what you'd expect for rent, with it varying between £300 and £500 pcm depending on sharing size etc.

As it is a university city there are plenty of bars and clubs offering student offers.

There are plenty of opportunities for giveback outside of your job role. I have helped to run placement and graduate assessment centres and presented workshops on smarter planet.