Financial Analyst Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my placement at IBM. I was given a great deal of responsibility and felt like I was a strong member of the team. I was based in London which was my first choice as I have always wanted to experience life in the big city. My work was generally interesting and varied, which gave me the opportunity to develop a variety of different skills.

I felt very valued - I sit close to the other team members here in the UK, meaning communicating and asking questions was easy - they were all accessible and helpful when I was learning. When I began to fully take on responsibilities I did feel like I was helping, and gradually there were certain topics where they would come to me for my input. I also made great improvements to some of the work I had been given, which was recognised by the team.

I sat next to my manager and she was in the office most days (unlike many of my friends) so she was able to give me lots of guidance in my work. There was also lots of guidance available from other sources, like on-line resources, group calls and special events, discussing everything from how IBM operates to developing personal skills.

At the start of the placement, I wasn't all that busy, as I spent the first couple of weeks just getting set up and sorting out accesses etc. At this time, some of the team was too busy to properly get me settled in. However, nowadays things are much better, though my workload does vary slightly throughout the month.

When I started getting different responsibilities and tasks handed over, I quickly was totally responsible for their completion (though I did have help if I needed it). I did have to learn through my mistakes a few times, even when it came to simple things like making sure I sent the correct files out each week! I soon had things under control, and over time had greater responsibility over things like organising calls with third party suppliers.

I feel the work I have done is not particularly relevant to my degree (Maths), but the general work ethic I have picked up will increase my own discipline and ability to work for the whole day, which will contribute towards my studies. However, other professional skills I have developed will undoubtedly be very useful when it comes to working in future jobs, and having a year in a renowned company like IBM is great experience to have on my CV.

The building itself was somewhat dull, but most of the time things were lively - there were around 100 or so other placement students alone in the office, so there were lots of opportunities to make friends. Towards the end of the year though, people did start working from home more and more, and as I was normally working with my other team members, while they would be in other parts of the office might not, so it could get a bit quite some days of the week.

This was a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, I had a bit of a rough start up - most of the things like accesses to conference calling, login details had to be set up once I actually started, which while obviously important was boring, and often quite complicated. I feel some of this could have been more efficiently organised before our arrival. Other things were very good though, there were lots of things in place for the placement students to get involved in, as well as ways to help development with different skills.

From the start, there were lots of online resources I could access if I needed help with things like Excel. Throughout the year, there were also development opportunities to develop skills like communication and presentation. There were also workshops to learn more about IBM, graduate roles etc. We kept a placement 'journal' summarising what our goals and development targets were, and it was interesting looking back at that towards the end of the year.

There are many graduate jobs available, though very few of them are just continuations of placement roles. I have to re-apply completely, which is what I am currently doing. There is a placement student to Graduate process though, which means our applications essentially get the initial screening. There is feedback towards the end of the placement which gives you an indication of what your chances are applying back. Depending of circumstances, you can skip the IPAT test, or even the assessment centre, and go straight to the final interview stage.

There were lots of placement students working in London (around 100) so there was lots of opportunities to make friends. There were parties organised amongst ourselves, but it have been better to have more organised by IBM itself, we were relatively 'on our own' in that regard.

It's London, so pretty expensive. I know there was quite a lot of variation in the prices/quality of me and my friends accommodation, so it's important to look around. I was quite lucky as well in that I had a few friends from university who were also looking for a house in London, so I didn't have to go through any hoops to find anyone to live with (and I knew we got along already!)

There were several nice bars, pubs and restaurants near where I worked (Waterloo), and I worked pretty centrally in London, so no-where was very far away on the tube. Leicester Square/Oxford Street/Covent Garden was pretty close, and there was more going on there in terms of nightclubs etc.

IBM encourage outside activities though their 'giveback' scheme, this is generally things like helping out at assessment centres, or going to university careers fairs. Though there is also some more interesting stuff to do as part of this scheme, like going into primary schools to teach programming though LEGO Mindstorms, or even helping at Wimbledon. There wasn't so much though in the way of sports clubs or other activities, at least if there was it wasn't very well advertised.