My name is Ibrahim Zulfiqar and I am a Healthcare and Life Sciences Associate Consultant at IBM.
What made you decide to come to IBM as a graduate?
Following the completion of my placement year at IBM, I was passionate about continuing my career in a company which invests in its employees in their areas of interest. My degree at the University of Leeds was in Biotechnology with Enterprise, so I wanted to find a way to combine me scientific knowledge with my business understanding. Joining IBM consulting within the healthcare and life sciences team had led me to achieving this goal. I now can apply the skills and knowledge from my degree into the corporate world, with a focus on improving patient outcomes overall! The graduate scheme involves working on a range of projects- this means you can get experience in completely different roles, in different sectors/areas of interest, throughout your time on the graduate scheme. This helps in guiding your career in realising what roles you like/don’t like, the IBM graduate scheme support your journey no matter where you want to take it!
What hints or tips would you give to those who are interested into applying to IBM as a graduate?
On all stages of the application process, firstly be yourself! You probably hear that a lot but honestly, IBM are more interested in you as a person than your degree. Be honest and confident in yourself. Make sure you make clear your areas of interest in IBM and consulting, as then you may be hired into those teams (e.g. Healthcare in my case) if there are vacancies available. Highlight how other roles you’ve had outside of your studies have moulded you as a person and as an early professional e.g. part time jobs or volunteering. Focus on the skills/experiences you have taken from each role and how you can apply them to be a successful IBM consultant.
What has your career journey at IBM looked like so far?
My career journey has progressed steadily from college to university (with an IBM integrated placement year) to the IBM consulting graduate scheme. Alongside my studies I worked in retail part time, giving me my foundational experience of customer service. During my penultimate year of study, I worked as a Business Operations and Marketing Analyst for IBM. Roles and responsibilities were based around improving the overall efficiency of the daily operation for two teams of industrial sales executives. I adapted my role and drove the production of new digital content creation to improve our client engagement during the Coronavirus pandemic. Some of the learning I undertook during this time included courses in project management tools such as trello, mural, Jira etc. Additionally, I learnt how to edit videos for my team through online courses using DaVinci resolve and adobe premier pro (having no prior experience of the tools). Though networking at the end of my placement, I found the healthcare and life sciences team who hired me to rejoin IBM when my final year of university was complete. Following graduation, I re-joined IBM as an associate consultant. My first role was working as a business process modeller, and my current role is as a technical business analyst/project management assistant on a client within the health care/life sciences sector. Whilst I did not have completely relevant experience beforehand, IBM has a range of courses which allowed me to train upskill myself and complete the projects in question. Some of this training included agile delivery, project management essentials and scrum mastering. No matter the role and your experience, as long as you put the work in you will be successful in the end!
What hints and tips would you pass on to a student about to start the IBM Recruitment Process (online application form/CV, online numerical test, assessment centre, matching interview)?
PLEASE NOTE - the online numerical test mentioned below by Ibrahim are no longer part of the process, the end to end recruitment process is always subject to potential change
Online application form: Be honest about your experiences as you will be questioned on this when you get to the later stages of the application process. Emphasise on what key skills and experiences you learnt from each of your previous jobs/roles and how they are directly transferable to your career at IBM. Keep your CV/application form presentable and concise as the recruitment team are trawling through many applications so avoid being removed because of presentation issues. This application is a written representation of you, so show them why they should hire you!
Online numerical test: This was difficult for me personally as maths wasn’t my strong suit, however practising online employer numerical tests did help me understand the format and prepare as best as I could. They typically consist of three 20-minute tests; two numerical and one shapes based. This is subject to change, but practising online tests help either way!
Assessment centre: These would have been in person in the past, however IBM has moved all assessment centres online until the COVID situation settles. This is your opportunity to show who you are as an individual and a team member! Never sit quite in the corner or speak the loudest cutting off others. Try to maintain a good presence throughout and contribute in a way that respects all, whilst moving the task at hand to completion. Ensure you time keep throughout and try to get all the members of the team involved. The general format is that you will all meet at the start, and then be broken into different breakout rooms. The first task is a presentation (you will be asked to prepare this in advance with a topic of their choosing), followed by a group exercise and then a final one-on-one interview. You will have breaks throughout the day- IBM assessment centres typically run for half a working day. Be confident, do your research on IBM, your areas of interest withing the organisation, and show them why you want to be a consultant for them. Don’t forget to ask questions (think of it as you interviewing IBM to see if they’d be a good fit for your career progression). As with any other interview, practise your competency questions and answers beforehand, the STAR principle is always helpful. Most importantly- stay relaxed!
Matching interview: If you have successfully passed all previously mentioned stages, then you will be put through a final matching interview. This is an interview with the hiring manager of the Practice you have been matched to (e.g. healthcare and life sciences in my case). Here my advice would be to do your research about IBM’s work in your area of interest and show your passion for working in the field. There are a lot of applicants and a limited number of roles, so try being adaptable as well, even if the practice is not as close a fit for you as you would ideally like. During the graduate experience, you can usually still try roles from across different Practices, so the Practice alignment is not the be all and end all! Pass the Practice interview - you usually hear back within 2 weeks or so - and you should be expecting a job offer!
What’s the best thing about your current role?
My current role is working as a technical business analyst/project management assistant on the client within the health care/life sciences sector. On this project our aim is to develop a cancer support tool where doctors and other medical professionals can draw on to help in early diagnosis and treatment. This way I know that the end user who will be benefiting from my time and effort as a consultant are patients! It’s nice to know that I can still utilise my life science degree and business acumen help improve people’s lives, whilst not in the medical field!
What’s the best thing about being at IBM?
Since starting my role as a consultant I’ve been able to take part in extra voluntary work, known as ‘Giveback.’ These voluntary initiatives are endorsed and encouraged by IBM leadership. My area of focus has been in Diversity and Inclusion as IBM wants all their employees to feel like they can bring their best selves to work. In my voluntary role as the associate community’s D&I lead, I work with a team of likeminded graduates to further IBM’s vision for the area. We run events with different BRGs (Business resource groups, i.e. groups which represent and promote different aspects of identity e.g. Black BRG, Asian BRG, Connecting women etc). This means that above and beyond my normal role, I can help new/existing IBM’ers feel welcome in the organisation and help them feel like they belong here in a diverse and inclusive workforce!
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