Work Placement Review

Doing a placement at Goldman Sachs was a great experience. I developed a lot of professional skills and had the opportunity to work with very inspiring people. The firm offers a variety of possibilities to engage with colleagues outside your department which enabled me to network with a broad range of people.

I managed to build a great relationship with my team. I was given a lot of responsibility as my placement progressed which helped me to increase my confidence and integrate more with my colleagues.

I had regular meetings with my manager to ensure that I was getting involved as much as possible with the projects in my department and any other possibilities to network with colleagues outside my department.

The amount of work varied between the year as for example quarter end was a very busy period for my department.

I was given a lot of responsibility during my placement which definitely played a role in getting the most out my placement. However, I was in regular contact with my manager to ensure that I was on the right path.

Coming back to university after doing a placement has definitely enabled me to be much more efficient. Keeping a working hours' routine is very easy and I have also found that due to the great amount of team work I was involved in at GS, it is much easier to work in groups at university. I took part to a lot of presentations during my placement year which have made speaking in public a lot easier and much more professional.

The department I was working in was very friendly; as there were around 80 people it was easy to built relationships with everyone and engage on a daily basis. The projects I was working on were based on team work so I was constantly working with different people and getting advice/feedback on how I could improve in the future.

I think it was greatly organised. The firm ensured that we got all the right support we needed to; we were given a manager, a mentor (an individual from our department with which we could have career discussions) and a buddy (someone that was helping us throughout the way to integrate in our department and offer more day-to-day advice). There were a lot of social events organised for placement and summer analysts which enabled us to meet and network with peers from our class throughout the year.

GS has a great programme called CTW (Community Team Work) which enables employees to work one day per year outside the office and help the community. During my placement I was involved on a project with Thames Water.