Analyst Review

I loved being in a great office in the city, working with a lot of friendly people and enjoying plenty of socials was great. The nature of the work was challenging but support existed when it was needed. I enjoyed the placement to a good extend because of these reasons.

On the whole I felt valued by my colleagues. I was given a lot of responsibility which demonstrates their trust. When I did work well I felt that it was appreciated, however there were a few times where if you do not shout about the work you have done it goes under the radar

I was given a lot of support and guidance by my managers. One in particular really helped me develop my skill set and set a great example to follow. There was a good support network in place that I could turn to if I needed additional or informal guidance too.

It varied, on some days the workload could be relatively low due to clients being away or the project work closing down. On other days I could be flat out until 8pm if there was an urgent change to be made to work or if there was an upcoming deadline.

I was given a lot of responsibility. For example I was trusted to lead client conversations and own particular areas of delivery for my project. I also had important tasks to complete outside of the project. A lot of faith was put in me to complete these additional tasks too.

To a small extent they should help. The time management and communication skills I picked up should come in useful in my degree. However, my degree programme is quite different or not really relevant to the sector of work I spent most of the placement year in - cyber security.

Everyone was very friendly and the office had a good atmosphere. We had lots of office fun initiatives and lots of socials. Most people were good friends at the client office. At head office there was great collaboration opportunities, and fun activities such as table tennis, FIFA and board games.

It was very organised. All placement students were grouped with new joining graduates on a 3 week training programme. After this, everyone was assigned their first project and sent off to work. My particular project was slightly less smooth but this was not the case for a lot of people.

The firm invested a lot in me. Besides the aforementioned 3 week general training, there were lots of opportunities to complete additional training such as Amazon Web Services, financial sector and agile working. We were encouraged and sponsored by the firm to attend these trainings for our our development at work.

Future employment opportunities are very appealing as the firm does not recruit to a quota - if you perform well enough, you will get a future job. The firm has recently reorganised and restructured, so there are exciting times ahead to see which direction the firm decides to go in.

There was an amazing social scene with fellow placement students. As there were nearly 30 of us, we built up a good group and acted as a great support network for each other. We had a lot of socials including golf, darts and plenty of meeting up for drinks after work.

I lived with family for the whole year and was also on a project away from London for 11 months living on expenses, so I can’t make a fair judgement on this question. However, costs of living and working in central London are typically very high, as most people know.

In London the nightlife is fantastic. There are endless bars, clubs and other interesting things to do within a stones throw of most major offices and companies. For example, I was about a 5 minute walk from Fabric, which was voted one of the best clubs in the United Kingdom.

I did not get involved in many after work opportunities but there were plenty to do, ranging from sports to hobbies. For example, the firm runs a major football competition every year where teams from different offices, projects and departments come together to play a tournament for charity - I thought this was cool.