Assistant Manager Review

On the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed my time working at Lloyds Banking Group. The work I was given was both interesting enough and challenging enough to keep my attention, while not making me feel like lost. The placement got the work-life balance right and I didn’t feel like there was more expected of me than I could achieve (even if I did have to push myself to achieve it).

Upon starting at LBG, I was immediately made to feel like one of the team and was encouraged to get involved with discussions where appropriate. There were times where I felt that I was a little undervalued, however these were few and far between. Overall my team provided a lot of positive and constructive feedback that I can build upon.

My line manager and the senior manager in my team provided me with lots of support and feedback through regular one to one meetings. I consistently felt like I could ask my line manager for help, no matter how simple or complicated the question. When I was more confident in the role I was given a lot greater free reign to work on pieces of work on my own, while still having that support to fall back on.

My day to day schedule varied greatly throughout the year. For example, there were times I would have to ask 3 people to give me something before I had anything to do and there were other times where I worked non-stop for 8+ hours. Overall though I would it balanced out to happy medium, allowing me to focus on the tasks I had at hand.

Due to the nature of my placement I there wasn’t a lot of work I could be given full control over, as almost every piece of work had to go through the correct governance channels. However, I feel like I was given as much control as possible and that I had a high level of responsibility at times throughout my year.

Unfortunately, as a maths student working in a very qualitative role, almost none of the skills I have developed over the past year will help me in my future studies. They will however help me greatly as I move into the working world as they are all very transferrable and relevant to almost any industry.

The office as a whole was very upbeat and the atmosphere was always comfortable. In terms of the specific area that I worked in everyone was approachable and a genuinely nice person. This made settling into the role and extremely easy process and made coming to work an enjoyable experience.

The transition when I started my placement was fairly seamless. Thanks to the efforts of the placement student before me, everything I needed was already in place and I had meetings set-up with contacts I would need throughout the year. This again made settling in a much easier experience for me.

Unfortunately, I feel this was an area that was slightly lacking over my year. Whilst I was given the opportunity to shadow other teams (one that I took), there wasn’t any other opportunities that I was pushed towards outside of my mandatory training (which I had to complete each quarter).

Whilst I would happily work with the people in my team again and happily work for an organisation like Lloyds again, I’m not sure how likely I would be to come back (especially to the same position). Over the year I have seen increasing cuts throughout the company leading to a fall in the number of opportunities to progress. As a potential graduate this is not something I liked seeing.

Outside of a core group of placement students that I did a lot with I would have to say no. Even when went out of my way to include people in the social events (organising Christmas parties, charity events and socials) the turnout was disappointing. Not sure why this is, but it was definitely something I noticed.

Being based and living in central London, the living costs were fairly astronomical. The first month prior to payday was particularly hard to survive, but after that it was just a matter of smart budgeting and improving my cooking skills so I didn't have to eat out all the time.

It's Central London - if anything there was too much to do...

Through LBG's various charity partnerships, I was able to get involved in numerous different activities outside of the office, including taking part in a 24hr team cycle for Children in Need.