IT Specialist Review

I work in a team which conclude on the reliability and effectiveness of the client's accounting system, through inquiry with client inquiries and extensive testing. Day to day job involves testing according to pre-established templates, communication including understanding expectations from my line managers, reporting work progress or issues to them, and talking to clients regarding required testing evidence. I work in multiple teams according to business needs, which varies in size, exact type of work, and managers to contacts.

I am treated no different with colleagues in the graduate scheme, as we get the exact same job description, pay, and responsibilities. I believe this was out of the consideration where none of us have prior knowledge on IT audit anyway (because it is extremely niche), we are all trained from zero and have the same level of readiness towards the role.

I would say the placement completely changed me in terms of employability, skills possessed and readiness for graduation. I am particularly aware of this after returning to the university as I realised that my communication skills was significantly improved, as small as sending emails and casual conversations, and as big as project presentations and public speaking. I have also developed a strong analytical and critical thinking from trial and errors within my placement. Lastly, I have learnt to use word and especially excel professionally. All the above skills are learnt or refined, and are transferable and highly applicable regardless of my future job roles or industry

An immense amount. We first spent a month in a learning trip, not only to learn about the basic theories and understanding, but to develop better relationships with our peers, where we can better help each other out later the year. Then, for each projects we do, we are assigned clearly a line manager and a project manager, both accessible any time in work for any questions or issues I face. Apart form that, we each are assigned a People Leader, who is like a manager who does not exactly work with us in our daily job, but is responsible for our personal growth, interpersonal issues, and progression plan that keeps us on the right track. Lastly, we have a few series of activities and event ranging from monthly to quarterly which are sessions to check on our wellbeing and to further add on our knowledge.

Very positive. While we work in different teams, a lot of the teammates are geographically dispersed and we very rarely see each other face to face. Therefore, the teammates we work with and teammates who are based in the same office geographically are likely to be two different teams. For my work teammates, we still have a lot of online catch ups up to twice a week despite not geographically close. We also have one to one meetings upon any technical issues, and plans a face to face teams day ones or twice in the semi annual period where we decide on an office and all teammates would travel to that office. For office teammates, we meet once every two weeks just to socialise and talk about more casual matters as we don't exactly work together. Both are extremely friendly and harmonious and I am very glad to be in the teams.

A really high amount; the comments in the previous sections pretty much concludes that

Yes