Operational Risk Analyst Review

I have really enjoyed my time at M&G as a placement student and hope to return as a grad in the future. The culture and work/life balance is brilliant when compared to other asset management firms. Everyone within the business is approachable and willing to help you learn. On day one you are introduced to all of the summer interns and placement students which helps with settling in. M&G run multiple training sessions at the beginning of the placement to help provide an insight into the asset management industry although most of the technical skills are learnt on the job. Management and HR are always on hand to help with any issues you might have and are open to any feedback regarding improvements to the scheme. Overall I have learnt many new skills, met some great contacts and think M&G is a great place to work.

I felt incredibly valued by my colleagues. They always involved me with interesting tasks and showed their appreciation for the work I did within the team. The majority of people within the company like to socialise outside of work and will always make sure to involve everyone within the team.

The support and guidance given on placement was brilliant. All placement students are assigned a ‘buddy’ a few weeks prior to their starting date. During my placement I had a placement manager who was a member of my team and separate to my line manager. I had bi-weekly, which later turned into monthly, meetings with my placement manager to discuss how the placement was progressing and whether I had any issues. Everyone in the team was always happy to take questions and provide guidance, helping me out with any queries I had.

The amount of work within my role varied regularly, although this was due to the nature of the role as the work tends to follow a quarterly schedule. Overall I believed the workload was almost perfect. I never once felt bored due to having no work to do and rarely had to stay late to complete assigned tasks.

I was surprised by the amount of responsibility given to me as a placement student. From the first few weeks I was assigned large and demanding tasks, often to be completed solely by myself – although support was always readily available, as mentioned above. I was often asked to complete new risk measurement/ reporting requirements, helping shape the future of the team’s processes.

In this role I developed a huge array of soft skills, especially in time management and networking. Whilst these don’t directly help with my degree (Maths), they will certainly help with my studies in terms of managing time and most definitely with future job applications.

What was the general atmosphere in your office? The office has a very polite and friendly atmosphere. Everyone is approachable, chatty and takes in in turns to do a coffee run.

This completely depends on your team. Unlike summer placements – where everything is structures throughout their time at M&G and feels like an internship – placement students are viewed as a member of their team. From my experience, the placement was organised very well.

The firm invested a lot of time in me. There was regular insight sessions for all employees and specific ones designed for the interns during the first month of starting.

If there is a great opportunity to get a place on the graduate scheme for the position you are working in, if one exists. In my case there was no graduate schemes in the department I completed my placement. That being said, HR are great with sorting out work experience in other departments and can often arrange interviews/ fast track you to assessment centres for other areas.

M&G hire near to 20 summer interns but only hired 3 placement students during my time here. Over the summer there was a great social scene among the interns and we regularly met outside of work. Once the interns left there were far less opportunities to socialise with other students, although this meant I could get closer to my team and focus on my work more.

The cost within the city of London is of course high, although M&G pay a wage to account for this and I have therefore given it a rating of 8. There are many great bars near work for having a drink, or three, after work.

The city of London is full of bars for a few drinks after work although there are no clubs, well at least no good ones. That being said, Shoreditch is within walking distance for an eventful Friday night/ early Saturday morning.

Over the summer there were many activities arranged by HR for the interns and also self-arranged activities. (These included non-drinking activities such as rounders in Regents Park and pub-quizzes). My team would often go out for lunch or dinner and lots of guys in the wider team played football with each other regularly.