Finance Analyst Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my 13 months at Pfizer's Finance department. I really enjoyed all of the work I was given and thought I was a valued member of the team, right from my first day. My department gave me so many opportunities to get involved with everything going on in the company and the ability to control what I focused on in my day to day role was incredibly insightful.

I felt like a member of the team from my very first day and was treated just as any other colleague would be. I had my own workload and responsibilities in day-to-day activities as well as project work, and felt like even more senior managers really appreciated what I was doing. This is something I was really looking for in a placement, so to have gone above and beyond my expectations was great.

My manager has done a really good job at supporting me throughout my entire placement year. As we work so closely, we are in pretty constant communication and they answer any questions I have very quickly. They also let me work independently from very early on in my placement, allowing me to learn on my own and apply what I'd been taught.

As Finance works mainly in monthly cycles, some days are very very busy and others are quieter. Later on in my placement, the quieter days were utilised for project work but in the first three months or so, I found myself looking for things to do. However, my colleagues were always willing to let me help out if they needed any help with their activities and I had a lighter workload.

I was given a lot of responsibility in my placement year and looked after the reporting for three markets, which is the standard for any other Financial Analyst in the department. Later on in the placement, I also worked on my own projects and even lead two by myself, which was such a great opportunity. I also helped in the onboarding process of new colleagues and helped recruit the new interns that would be replacing the current undergraduates.

As I do a Science-based degree, I mainly used my transferrable skills in my placement such as analysis, problem-solving and organisation. It was great for me to get experience applying these skills to a business-based role. I feel like I also developed multiple new Finance-related skills to help me with further career ambitions after university. These include using various different business systems as well as Microsoft Office and VBA, which can be applied to multiple companies.

The office was always a very positive place, and as there are around 60 placement students, I was always bumping in to people I knew. Even outside placement students, everyone is very sociable and it's encouraged you take regular breaks to get drinks or have a walk around site. My department was also a really nice place to be, everyone was always willing to help you out and answer any questions you might have. We also had coffee morning every Wednesday to catch up on what was going on across the business.

My placement was really well organised by HR and by my department. I had a one week general onboarding session with HR, giving me access to the site, setting up my logins and getting used to how to use all my equipment. I then had three weeks of onboarding with my department to give me an overview of my daily tasks as well as then sitting 1:1 with my manager for a couple of weeks to get me up to speed on what I would be doing.

I was fortunate enough to have a lot of control over what I did for project work and how I planned my time over my day-to-day responsibilities. I was trusted with a lot of work to further my development, being able to lead my own projects on things I wanted to achieve in my year at Pfizer. I felt able to contact anyone in the business to ask their advice on certain things, no matter their role as I felt everyone was around to help me.

In my department, a lot of students are asked to return once they finish university if there are any job openings. Many of my colleagues had been placement students or apprentices, so they really invest in the talent pool and bringing people back full time.

As there were so many of us, there was always someone who you could chat to, whether that was going for a coffee in the office or outside of the office plans. Most of the placement students lived in Epsom so it was very easy to organise social events. There are also very regular trains in to Central London, so we could go into the City if we wanted to do anything that Epsom couldn't offer.

In Surrey, the cost of living is very expensive, but I think if you're resourceful enough, it is manageable on a placement wage. It's not as expensive as in Central London but is still quite considerable, especially if you've come from a Northern university like me. A lot of the time, we would take trips in to London which always made socialising more expensive, but there's plenty of stuff to do that's free or quite cheap if you're on a budget.

There are plenty of pubs in Surrey and surrounding the office, so we often went for drinks after work to socialise as a department. In terms of night clubs, there isn't very many in Surrey so you would have to go into central London or Guildford usually for a night out. As your so close to London, this really opens up the amount of nightlife and means you don't have to rely on the clubs in Epsom all the time.

I personally didn't get involved in many activities outside of work but I think there's plenty of opportunity should you go looking for it. There were several sports clubs in Surrey that multiple other placement students were involved in, as well as running clubs with work and I'm sure there would be other recreational clubs should you go looking for them.