Accounts Analyst Review

I really enjoyed my placement at IBM. My placement has given me the opportunity to develop and improve a wide range of personal skills, and then apply to these to real situations that hold a lot of responsibility. Furthermore I have had the opportunity to meet lots of amazing and inspirational people, as well as getting involved in lots of interesting projects.

I felt highly valued by the team that I worked in, from day one I was treated just like a full time employee in that team would be. As I got further into the placement year, I got involved in lots of projects to benefit the team, which required a lot of trust from my team members. I feel like I have been highly appreciated by my colleagues.

Support and guidance were available at all times in the form of a task manager (managing you and your tasks on a day to day basis, and an Early Professional's manager (who manages your career, skill set and who is your first point of contact). I was able to talk to these people at any time, and they were always interested in my wellbeing, and me getting the most out of my placement. In terms of guidance you are always supported in some way as you carry out your tasks.

At the start of my placement I was very busy, and I was learning a lot about my role, and my tasks as well as developing the skills I needed to perform well in my job. As I got further into my placement, I found that I became much more efficient and completed my tasks a lot quicker. At this point, I had to be very self motivated to find tasks and projects above and beyond my daily tasks. However this was not difficult, particularly due to the vast amount of giveback/volunteering activities available. I could see that without self motivation you could potentially become very quiet with work.

I feel like I was given a fair amount of responsibility in that I reported various financial metrics to the Chief Accountant and CFO for Ireland. This was great and it felt like real insights were being gained from my presentations as well as basic decisions made of the back of them. However the responsibility was not such that, if I were to make a mistake, the business would be significantly impacted, as much of my reporting was outside of standardized process.

I feel that the skills I have developed will be of great use and advantage in my future career. I have definitely improved lots of my personal skills, particularly presentation and I.T skills that will put me in a much better when applying for graduate jobs than I would have been.

The atmosphere was generally friendly and quite lively. However some days it could be very quiet in the office. There was a great and lively atmosphere in the Placement student community due to there being around 300 of us, this made for an excellent community.

The placement scheme was very well set up, with formal training and reviews throughout the placement. The dedicated team that work with the placement students worked well as everything was well organized and communicated well at all times. Sometimes however events and activities specific to placement students, could clash with workload and events taking place in your team. For example I often found clashes in placement community training/ commitments at month end due to my financial role.

The invest in personal training and development was vast, with a range of face-to-face training sessions, and ongoing online and mobile training sessions. There is always training out there for anyone to undertake and a vast amount of resource online. There is a huge focus on personal development in the companies culture which also helps .

I feel that the future employment prospects in the company are massive, with lots of graduate positions available. There is also a large focus throughout the placement on preparing for a career in IBM with dedicated calls and events. However a lot of the roles are very specific (e.g a huge amount of consulting roles) and it is very unlikely to get a role in the same team that you worked in on placement.

There was a great social scene amongst fellow placement students. With around 70 placement students based at my location there was always lots of social get together and nights out. .

Living at home during my placement significantly reduced my cost of living, but rent prices were reasonable if I had needed to move out. Generally the cost of social activities was not too expensive for the south.

The nightlife was fairly good with a range of night clubs and bars available in Portsmouth, and this is helped by the large number of students at the University of Portsmouth. Student nights are generally busy and good. The Wedgewood rooms, Guildhall and pyramids also host a lot of varied live music too.

Yes, IBM has a dedicated giveback and volunteering internal site for you to find activities to get involved in outside of your work to benefit the community. There are lots of events as well, and always new opportunities cropping up to get involved with. However it would have been nice to have paid travel to other locations more often.