Anna's placement at IBM

How did you secure your work placement at IBM?

It was a long application process. I sent my application form in with some details about me, my skills, what I’d done so far and what I'd like to do with my career in the future. I received an email back telling me that I was through to the next stage, which was great news! Then I had to do an IPAT test, which was mostly maths based, followed by a video interview and an assessment at IBM's office in London. After a week, I got a phone call telling me that I had been successful!

Fantastic! Did you apply speculatively or did you know that IBM had opportunities?

I went on IBM's website and saw that there were a lot of placement opportunities listed. I applied for the ones that I thought would be interesting.

What do you do day-to-day in your job?

My main role is to take care of finance for our account. It mainly involves looking at target proposals, I analyse what kind of finance we've been involved in during the past quarter so that I can look at it for the next quarter. I can propose a budget and control that budget. It involves analysing all of the applications and projects we are expecting, and talking to a lot of partners and executives to get a good idea of what budget should be proposed. I do pricing and solution estimating for projects as well, and because this work is done for more senior people, I work with the junior project manager on that. I also analyse sales opportunities and projects we've got in IBM, as well as doing some ad hoc tasks.

Has anything surprised you about this job?

Because I am a placement student, I thought that I wouldn't have a lot to and I didn't think I'd be working on important tasks. So the fact that I've been doing this has surprised me. But this hasn't been a bad thing - it's a real job, it's amazing and I'm really enjoying it.

What three things do you think you've learned from your experience?

I've gained interpersonal skills, as communication is very crucial when you're working in a big team. I've developed my Microsoft Excel skills, as I work with a lot of spreadsheets every day. I've also gained analytical skills.