Financial Analyst Review

The Placement has been a great learning journey. I have developed a wide range if skills, from Analytical abilities to presentation skills. I have also experienced a real work environment, with highs and lows but overall a great experience.

Working in a small but important team, everyone had to contribute 120% go get the work done. Coming in as a placement student I was treated as an Analyst. Everyone in the team was approachable and eager to help.

The amount of support was enough to get the job done. However, I was encouraged to talk to people and find solutions to problems on my own. I believe this played an important part in my development.

The balance was just right, I was responsible for daily deliverables and I also had long term projects spanning over weeks or months. It was my responsibility to manage my won time and make sure that I work on both.

The amount of responsability scaled exponentially through the placement. At first, I had to learn how to use the systems, how the business works and meet the right people. This allowed me to get involved in high profile projects, gaining exposure to senior executives, presenting in front of large audiences and so on.

There was on the job training, online webminars and live workshops that contributed to my development. While there were no formal qualifications involved, 12 months is not enough for these to have any value.

As an American Company, there were a mix of international people working in the office. There were events organised during major events such as the World Cup - a Vice President would represent a country and bring goodies in the office (specific to the country the represented), games shown on TV's after working hours. For Halloween the office was decorated, during Easter we've had an egg hunt and many more events. These are owed to the employee engagement team which organized a lot of fun events.

The Placement had a clear structure, during the summer we were paired in a lot of events with the Summer Interns and after the summer we had a couple of events throughout the year such as a VIP tour of the London Eye (yes, there was champagne), Dinners to catch up with the interns after the received their job offers, and many more. Working in one team you had to have real responsibilities but the Graduate team kept in touch and organized a lot of networking events and speaker series (events during which a senior person from another line of business would hold a presentation about opportunities in their area).

There were a lot of workshops with external guests on corporate skills, external guests teaching us Excel (in the office). We could also choose the difficulty level of these workshops so for example in Excel you could learn to do sums or complicated VBA macros. In terms of development, the opportunities that I was given are priceless. I am grateful for the trust my team had in me as I have learned a lot.

Yes, I have received a Graduate Offer to join Amex, and so did the majority of my colleagues - but everyone was really good at what they did. As an international company, there are opportunities to move around geographies (Europe, US, Asia etc.). All it takes is a solid business case and a leader that needs a person in their team. There is also a clear progression so for example in 10 years time you can 90% guess what position you will hold. Of course, it depends on individual performance as well, but the company will not hinder your progress in any way, but the contrary, they encourage people to move around every couple of years (both vertically and laterally).

We've had a small group of Placement Students. Some of us were based in London and some were Based in Brighton. We would have a lot of opportunities to see each other during workshops and networking events (where were hold both in London and Brighton).

London is expensive, be prepared for it if you were living outside London. You can find a lot of details on living expenses online but rent will make up the majority of your expenses.

Colleagues were meeting outside work, both placement students and full time employees. Like anywhere else, it depends on who you feel comfortable hanging out with.

There are quite a few CSR opportunities throughout the year and you are allowed to take part in these, you are even encouraged. This means that you will miss a day of work but as long as you do not have important deadlines managers are usually happy to allow you to partake - they might even join you.