Expense Analyst & Statutory Accountant (two seperate roles) Review

I really enjoyed my first role as Expense Analyst, however around Christmas 2007 I learmt that my job role was to move to Slovakia. At first I was a little disappointed but then I started to think about all the small annoying parts of the job at which point I began to look forward to handing the job over. Plus, I got the chance to travel to Slovakia and work from there for two weeks. The new job role I now have as Statutory Accountant is completely different to the first role and I feel quite privileged that I have had the chance to see two very different parts of the business.

It seems to be the case that all the students within accounting take on tasks included in their job roles that are deemed as "less glamorous" for example, in IBM all students are responsible for their teams controls compliance status. This can be quite a dull part of the job however the other members of the team were quite grateful that they had someone to look after this for them. Also, as the project to move our job roles to Slovakia came to an end there were still some accounts under my team members ownership - this is basically accounting admin type work but I took the lead on monitoring the account status so that the other members of the team could move on in to their new job roles without worrying too much, this was very much appreciated.

On a monthly basis I have a one to one meeting with my manager which is just a chance to talk about any subject that you like, work related or otherwise. More recently I had a meeting with my manager concerning starting my dissertation and I feel that this gave me the kick start that I needed - I have now started my dissertation research and have a template for my dissertation which I now need to work on to complete.

The busiest times during the first role were month ends and quarter ends (the month ends in March, June, September and December). This is very much the same for the rest of accounting. Month ends could be quite manic and involve staying in the office until 7 - 8pm, however for the rest of the month it was fairly quiet but there was still enough work to fill the day, and ifI had really run out of jobs to do I used the time to complete my university logbook. In my new role, there is always work to do however I am in the fortunate position that I do not have "month ends" anymore so my workload is spread evenly across the month.

I think in my first job role I was given more responsibilty than my predecessor, but this is in part due to the fact that he too had two job roles and had only been doing the job role 3 - 4 months before he handed it over to me. For example, I was given ownership of accounts and was the team representative on a couple of projects that affected the whole of accounting. I was also privy to confidential information which formed part of my job role as I dealt in the company side of employee benefits.

Basic skills such as presentation skills, communication and IT have greatly improved. I feel more confident in my own abilities and would never have believed that I would have accomplished as much as I have in the past year. Although I think that I was fairly organised at university before going in to a working environment, having a routine of working 9 until 5 will definitely help me to stay more focussed on studying for longer periods of time when I return to university in October 2008.

Within the team there is a fair amount of chatting etc however the office as whole was fairly quiet compared, to example, to those working in HR. The overall office was a little dull as well, but in my job role I was quite close to the window which was a bit of a bonus! Also no one could see when I had a sneaky look on the internet!

It was fairly well organised however I had heard of some people not having proper job roles or the job roles that they had wanted. This is set to all change though as the people that organise the graduate scheme have taken over the organisation of the student placement scheme and I think that they will rid the scheme of any of the problems already mentioned.

There are always courses available that you can enrol in - some are mandatory and others depend on your interests. I completed an Excel course online and there are a variety of other courses that you can do for examlpe, there is a presentation course.

As I have already completed a placement year with IBM I will be fast-tracked within the graduate scheme should I wish to apply. As it happens I recently attended a meeting on the graduate scheme - if you register your interest then you can be notified of any job roles that become available. You can also register for a "Buddy Scheme" where you are allocated a Buddy for your final year at university who can give you advice on your dissertation and also act as a contact within IBM should you wish to return or if you just want to increase your people network.

Yes! This is probably the best part of the placement other than the money! In Portsmouth, where accounting is based, there is the highest number of students - around 100 I think. These people are definitely people that I plan to stay in contact with and I hope this will be for a long time as well.

Rent averaged £250 to £300 for renting a shared house. Portsmouth is fairly cheap and there are always student deals available.

The nightlife itself was ok but made better by the people that I was with. Portsmouth is close to Southampton and Bournemouth, so there is the option to go elsewhere. There have also been a couple of nights out in London.

There tended to always be someone organising something outside of work amongst the students. I went to Val d'Isere on a week long ski trip with 74 other students. I also went to Ayia Napa for a week with 7 other girls. One of the girls I worked with in my first team was a hip hop dance teacher - I attended her classes and have performed on the West End as well as local clubs.