Risk Analyst Review

My year at Lloyds Banking Group was very eye opening. The atmosphere in the office was a relaxed one which helped me settle into my role with relative ease as well as grow and develop during the year knowing the support was there. I very much enjoyed the year and feel it is a great place to undertake an internship to give you a good start into working life.

From very early on I felt like a part of the team. Within a week I was being given meaningful work that made a difference and was appreciated by my colleagues. During the year I was sent various appraisal E-mails and cards to say a job well done, especially for tasks that I had made my own.

At the start of the placement I was given lots of resources and time to learn the skills needed for the job. I was also sent away of training days to further increase my knowledge and understanding of banking and coding. Regular meetings were held with line managers and senior managers to monitor my progress and discuss ways in which my experiences could be improved.

There were periods within each quarter were work was thick and fast, with monthly deliverables. The rest of the time was fully dependant on the amount of Ad-Hoc work we had coming into the team and whether I was able to get myself working on it or not which wasn't always possible. I would say to this extent I spent more days busy than days with lots of free time.

For the most part my responsibility was simply to deliver results for the team. The emphasis was on me taking charge of the tasks and processes I was given and running them myself. Sometimes this also meant analysing the processes to find inefficiencies and suggesting ways to improve them before going on to implement that change. The help was there if needed but I was trusted to get on with work, plan my own time and take an active part in discussions as best I could by offering suggestions.

I spent a lot of time learning and using SAS during my time and the skills I have learnt will be valuable when returning to my degree. This is because I will be continuing to code in my final year so having kept it up at work has been a great help. I have also continued to do maths whilst within the bank which has kept my skills sharp and introduced me to new areas of maths I had not previously explored.

The office atmosphere was great. There were always fun activities going on whether it be Bake-Off, fancy dress days, Christmas and summer themed games. I myself organised a biscuit world cup that lasted 4 months and went down a treat! On the work side of things it was quite relaxed, everyone got on really well.

The placement was set up to monitor our development throughout, gradually giving us more responsibility and making sure we felt challenged. At times I had hoped there would be more or differing work to undertake but this feeling was short lived as something would come up. Everyone was given a line manager whom they had regular catch-ups and discussions with about how we were progressing and any problems we were having.

We were given training on SAS, Basel and banking, as well as quarterly mandatory training to make sure we were doing our jobs correctly. There were also further opportunities that anyone could take advantage of in a multitude of things both online and face to face courses. A lot of time, especially at the beginning was invested in us to make sure we could do the best job and we felt valued.

The social scene amongst placement students varied as a lot of us were not from Leeds so spent time away which didn't always fit in with each other. There were around 15 placement students in my office so it is likely you would get at least a few people staying over the weekend.

There were lots of opportunities for activities outside of work. I was part of the social committee for our wider team and we put on regular events to try and cater for as many people as possible. Sports, board games, movies, drinks, community days. There was lots to get involved in to suit a lot of people.