Financial Analyst Review

My placement overall was great and it offered me many opportunities to take up responsibilities. I also had the opportunity to meet and collaborate with senior management all across the different businesses of Sony. The work life balance was excellent. I would definitely recommend my placement role.

While I can only speak for my specific role as the placement student in the global finance division of Sony; overall my tasks and responsibilities were very much needed and required. Many of the tasks I took on outside my normal requirements also added great value. As a result, I felt quite valued by my colleagues. But that being said, there were a small number of incidents where my input was indirectly/subconsciously not valued.

When I initially joined, there was a slight lack of support regarding certain tasks which I found difficult, which meant I was quite unclear on those for a little while. But as I picked up the pace and became used to the processes and tasks, the support and guidance began to increase.

As with most finance based roles, I was more busy at the start/end of each month compared to mid-month but as I took on tasks and projects outside my normal responsibilities, this reduced. Overall, while I cannot say that there was too much work - my role specifically had more tasks to complete than usual during certain periods due to various reasons.

As mentioned before, a lot of the work I am assigned to do directly adds value and is required. I have on many occasions solely been responsible to deliver presentations, analyses and so on. I'd say that my role was quite full-on with important responsibilities from day 1 which only got better.

I believe that placement year in general is a great stepping stone for your career let alone your degree. The knowledge and skills I have gained over the past year will be extremely valuable when I apply for graduate schemes next year. While I cannot say yet if any of the skills I have picked up will assist with my degree studies - I can confidently say that it will separate me from all other candidates applying to graduate jobs/schemes

Based in Weybridge, it does not help in terms of naturally having a better atmosphere. But overall most of the people were approachable and easy to talk to. That being said, most of the colleagues around me had a global nature, which meant they were travelling most of the time - so it did feel very quiet around me at times.

From Sony's perspective the placement was very well set up and the structure was good. But, the experience with Hays, who they use for our payslips/contract was very bad. They managed to lose copies of my documents multiple times and caused a lot of issues at the time of setting up my contract.

While there was no specific personal training and development offered, we had 4 'student placement' days where we went to PlayStation, Pinewood Studios and other Sister companies where we had presentations from senior management and fellow placement students in each company followed on by CV and general career advice from our HR representative.

There is a graduate scheme for finance which only started this year. I have spoken to various people involved in the recruitment process and there is definitely scope for placement students to return. That being said, I am unsure how the application process supporting that will work as I am not a British/EU citizen.

There was a great social scene between fellow placement students. Most of lived very close to each other which meant that we quite often went to pubs, music events, nights out and so on quite often. As for colleagues I cannot say the same in my case but I have heard a better scene in other cases.

I lived in zone 6 with a couple of fellow interns, so we paid the usual rent rate in those areas but overall this will be more expensive/as expensive as what you pay at uni depending on where you go. In terms of socialising, most places are usual london prices.

Weyrbidge is a very quiet area in Surrey and as one would expect, there next to nothing going on in terms of nightlife. There are a few overpriced pubs and restaurants but nothing apart from that. But that being said, the train to London is only 25-30 mins, which has a lot more to offer.

There was not many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work apart from a gym discount offered at select locations. There is a informal running club that goes for runs every Tuesday and a grass ground with goals next to the office available to book by all Sony employees.