Vikesh Gosai

Country of origin: United Kingdom

Placement: IBM

I vividly remember talking to a 4th year BBA Management student who had recently completed his placement year when I came to a Lancaster University Open Day. Before this moment I had no intention of taking a placement year but after one conversation with him this changed. To put it briefly, he mentioned that the one year allowed him to learn a great deal about himself and clarified the path that he wished to pursue once he graduated. I liked the sound of that and I can honestly say that I’ve learnt more in 15 months spent at IBM than 16 years of traditional education. Now if that doesn’t encourage you to take a placement then I don’t know what will!

In my placement I have had a split role, spending 4 days a week as a Strategic Consultant on various client accounts helping IBM deliver or sell assets. The second part of my role was spent in the London Analytics Solution Centre, there I collaborated with other Analytics Solution Centres around the world (mainly in America-Dallas & France-Nice) and presented these primarily analytic based assets to clients and other IBMers.

Developing softer skills has been very important to me throughout the placement. I had initially underestimated how important the art of building and maintaining a relationship is, however, the placement year has taught me to not underestimate these skills as they are vital if you wish to succeed in industry.  I have also improved my technical skills on analytic based software (R, SPSS, Hadoop). I’ve found that understanding the back end process of IBM assets helped with the knowledge transfer when having conversations with clients.

I was very pleased that Louise Briggs from the LUMS Careers team came to IBM for my placement visit for an update on the role and to see how I was doing. We had a great conversation and it was very comforting to know that the LUMS team were always there to help should I need it. Moving away from a place as beautiful as Lancaster was always going to be hard so it was nice to know the LUMS team were always there to support in any matter.

Now that I have completed my placement I know what I want and more importantly what I don’t want in my graduate position; in terms of both the company culture and the job role. At the start of my placement I was doing a role that I did not enjoy but I was fortunate enough to move into a space that I did really enjoy and gain a lot from. This experience has definitely shaped the way in which I will select a company and a role, I now know that I need to find a role and company that suits me rather than adapting and adjusting myself to fit into an organisation that isn't really a suitable fit for me.