IT Specialist Review

I support pre sales customer events. This involves setting up technical environments for sales teams across Europe so that they can demo IBM software to our clients.

I have developed a broad understanding with VMware and hope to be a VMware Certified Professional by the end of the year. Throughout my apprenticeship I have also gained the CompTIA A+ certifcation. I have also done courses for CompTIA Network +, Microsoft Active Directory, Programming Fundamentals, Linux Fundamentals and VMware. It is fair to say that IBM have supported me with all the extra learning that I have needed to do.

I really enjoy being an apprentice and can honestly say it's been the best career decisions of my life. I'm based in a team with a mixture of graduates, apprentices and full time IBMers so there is plenty I can learn as well as enjoy myself with the younger members of the team.

From day 1 I have been treated like a full time employee and this has given me the confidence and inspiration to work on some high priority pieces of work for clients. I have received plenty of internal recognition and have had several manager choice awards already.

I've felt well informed and organised throughout the apprenticeship scheme since the start. We had a two week induction where we understood about IBM and generated some key skills that will help us along the way. As mentioned above IBM have supported me with multiple training courses. I've been involved in a lot of projects and tasks since joining. This has involved supporting sales events or improving the infrastructure of my department. However sometimes information is not fed through to every apprentice, or mandatory training courses are not delivered on time but this is due to the large volume of IBM apprentices.

More than enough. They are happy to fund all of my external training as well as provide me with exam vouchers. My team within IBM also support any days out I have to do the training as well.

My Manager has supported me with any external training I've needed to do from the start. This has included me missing at least 15 days a year for external training courses.

Reasonable. I do not get expenses to work unlike other apprentices as it's my base location so I do a 70 mile round trip to work. This means I spend quite a lot on fuel as well as maintaining my car, but this cannot be helped. The apprenticeship scheme has incremental pay rises every 6 months so hopefully this won't be an issue soon.

Plenty of opportunities outside of work. I went to the Corporate Games this year which is a two day event where we compete against corporate companies from around the county at a variety of different sports. I represented IBM in football this year. I also meet up regularly with IBMers outside of work

Yes

IBM has offered me a fantastic path into a ginormous corporate company and as I said above it has been the best life decision I've made. I've really enjoyed my time so far and hope it continues in the future.

Show that your a rounded person with variety of different skills. Don't focus your talent on one skill. Secondly ensure that you are flexible with what you do or where you work, the main aim for me when applying was to just get my foot in the door and go from there.