Service Designer Review

As a service designer i am responsible for designing new services for our clients. this involves understanding the current user experience and any problems with it and then ideating to come up with ideas on how to alleviate these problems and improve the service, or design a new service based upon user needs. This involves user research, market research, design thinking activities such as personas, as is experience mapping and creating service blueprints which map out the future journey with technical capabilities to make it work, user and business value and key performance indicators

Since working at IBM i have gained a level 4 junior management consulting qualification. I have developed my relationship building skills, for instance i have to regularly work with clients, often senior. This has built on my relationship building skills, for instance developing rapport and managing objections from resistant stakeholders. I have also developed my presentation skills because i am often required to playback progress to my colleagues but also clients. I have also gained certifications in design thinking, agile methodologies and user centred design. I have attended many internal and external training courses including agile, business analysis, project management, consulting and design thinking.

I thoroughly enjoy my apprenticeship at IBM because there is a welcoming culture for apprentices and i was given many opportunities to grow my knowledge and skills. I have worked in advanced roles that have allowed me to progress quickly, despite being an apprentice. There is a huge early professional community at IBM which really helps socially. I was really nervous to join a global organisation as an apprentice but they have far exceeded my expectations because of the level of support you get, the roles and progress you can make.

We had a 2 week residential induction. Training is well organised in that it is very easy to find and for my apprenticeship pathway, it was arranged for me so i would be told when and where it would be. There is a lot of structured support available, for instance you have a foundation manager, a task manager, a 'buddy' who is an existing more experienced apprentice and a mentor. You have regular meetings with your foundation manager regarding progress and similarly with your mentor. My degree is extremely well structured in that i have week learning blocks at university and then regular webinars in between. Though self-paced study is as and when suits me and work.

I receive a lot of support from my employer - i have a foundation manager who manages everything to do with my apprenticeship and have regular progress meetings with them. I also have a task manager on each project that i work on who manages my day to day role and progression towards promotion etc. I then have a mentor who supports me in career development and progression but also in my apprenticeship. For instance, they support me in university assignments and guiding me on ways i can meet my knowledge, skills and behaviours.

I have a tutor from the university who conducts tripartite reviews with me regarding my degree process and sets me goals for progressing. For each unit, support varies dependent upon the tutor. Some tutors have been incredibly helpful and respond very quickly to emails, others less so. There are also study skills tutors who are extremely helpful with regards to academic writing and assignments - they respond quickly and will help as much as you require. The library chat function has also been incredibly helpful for me

my qualification is already helping me to perform better in my role because it is providing me with a breadth of knowledge that i don't get exposure to in my daily role. for instance my module of managing and leading people has helped me to better support people that i mentor and has aided me in taking the lead on a project. similarly, i have very little finance and accounting experience but the module has provided me with the knowledge of how to manage project budgets which i will need to use as i lead projects.

There are lots of extra-curricular activities to get involved with including communities, events, wellbeing activities including yoga, sports classes etc. There are lots of lunch and learns, roundtables for learning and getting your voice here. There are voluntary initiatives such as speaking about apprenticeships at school and colleges, careers fairs etc in addition to charity work. There are lots of social and networking opportunities such as events, lunches, team socials. One difficulty with these are that they tend to be in the bigger cities i.e. london, manchester etc so can be difficult to attend when you live outside of those.

Yes

I would definitely recommend working at IBM to a friend because of the scope of work - there are so many different areas you can work in, types of work you can do, departments, lines of business etc. Additionally, there are so many opportunities to develop your knowledge and skills with many training courses at your disposal, so easily accessible and also progression opportunities if you are willing to work hard. The level of support as well as pay.

IBM look for competencies as opposed to specific domain knowledge or skills so consider transferrable skills that you have during your application. Think about what makes you different, what experiences have you had in your life that your peers haven't - these can be personal not necessarily work. These really make you stand out and be memorable. The process can take a while because of the size of the organisation and amount of people who apply so be patient!