Request for Service Manager Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my placement year at IBM. They have a fantastic placement scheme in place with plenty of support on offer and a huge variety in job roles and experiences. But also remember a placement is just as much of what you want to make of it than what the company has to offer. Go in with an enthusiastic approach and good levels self-motivation and you will excel.

I feel there is a lack of common goals within IBM as a whole as it its such a big company. However, within my team and to an extent the sector in which I worked in, I felt very valued and respected as a fellow employee. I was given the same level of responsibility if not more than fellow colleagues, once I had proved myself reliable. There is also a great community feel between the interns and the team involved in supporting us.

The support systems in place at IBM are highly valuable. There is plenty of opportunities for training and education sessions in your areas of work and also in areas such as mindfulness. Each year the old interns will provide a handover period to the new interns, which is a great way of getting to grips with your role and also makes you feel comfortable working with people of a similar age. Guidance throughout the year was amazing, my task manager would give me plenty of time and was happy to answer any questions posed. This further extended to my team and as a whole, if you ask, people are happy to respond.

Overall, I was very busy (in a good way!) on a day to day basis. My role required numerous daily calls and deadlines to be hit. If there were ever any quiet periods there were heaps of other opportunities to take advantage of, including 'giveback' sessions such as helping out at graduate assessment centres and going to schools to give presentations. This was a great way to gain even more experience and grow your social/professional network.

I was given large amounts of responsibility during my time on placement. I went to work on customer sites, communicated with IBM customers on a daily basis with confidential information and much more. If you can prove yourself reliable and professional there are no barriers put up because 'you are an intern', resulting in great exposure and experience.

I have already found the skills i developed in presenting, writing, self-brand and more, extremely helpful in my development as a young professional and within my studies at university. Whether it is writing an email to a lecturer or putting a presentation together, the skills that I learnt whilst at IBM have helped massively. Looking beyond university I can only see this experience being ever more valuable and would highly recommend all those who have the opportunity of a placement year to take it!

As stated in my previous answers the placement scheme was impeccable when it comes to set up. Each intern has a number of 'managers' that they can go to for support and more. The training sessions from day one were very useful and this theme continued throughout the year.