Early Professional Engagement & Attraction Marketing Coordinator Review

Looking back on my year, I can say its been good. I've challenged myself and developed a lot of skills. I have had some down times due to bad management and busy, over-powering times but apart from those moments, I've had a good year and learnt a lot!

At the beginning of my placement I had a different manager to the manager I had at the end. My first manager was very controlling, didn't listen to ideas or cared about my development which didn't make me feel valued. But with a change in manager half way through placement, that completely changed and my opinions were valued and considered and we felt like a family and great team!

My second manager was great at offering me support and she would always take time out to assist me with anything if I needed it. My wider team were also great at doing this and I never felt like a fish out of water.

I would say on an average day I was steadily busy. In my role, there are times of the year that are super busy and other times where we are quiet. But in those quiet times I got involved in extra projects which always meant I had something to do.

From the first day of my placement, I have had huge amount of responsibility. I manage social media accounts, websites and work with many suppliers externally. My manager does check in on me to see how I'm doing but she is more than happy for me to run with it and make the decisions.

I am studying marketing at university and even though my placement role is listed as a marketing role, it is actually in HR. So I did learn some marketing skills but mostly learnt about HR during my year. However, skills such as confidence, presenting etc were hugely improved which will assist me in my studies and beyond!

I am based in the Portsmouth office and it isn't the best. The location isn't completely owned by IBM so it doesn't have the same feel compared to if you go to London or Winchester. The offices are quite dull, nothing exciting going on and the canteen is tiny.

I think the whole set up in terms of induction, getting us settled in and then checking in on us throughout the year is well structured. I would say within my team, there could have been better communication between us and other teams we work with but generally the set up was smooth.

A lot of your personal training and development is up to you. You have an Early Professional Manager who is meant to help your development but you can get missed and not checked on if you're not a 'loud' one. So if you're driven to do it yourself then thats good!

I'm not planning on returning to IBM as they have no marketing positions but if they did then I would consider them.

In Portsmouth there was no social. But as I was lucky to go to London and Winchester a lot, the social was loads loads better!

Cost of living and working in Portsmouth is fine.

Never really stayed in Portsmouth so rarely went out.

Never experienced doing other activities outside of work.