Credit Risk Analyst Review

On a day to day basis the job could be very slow and at times repetitive. I sometimes felt that the level of work I was being given didn't match the training I had received, sometimes being too advanced. There were positives such as the skills I learnt but they didn't outweigh the downsides.

When I first started, the team had a lot more members but over the course of the placement they started to change roles and it became a lot quieter. As a team we did very few social activities beyond Christmas Festivities which meant there was less opportunity to socialise with the team outside of a working environment.

At the start of the placement I was given lots of training to bring me up to speed but this quickly became redundant or didn't make a lot of sense because I was so new. However, I never felt like I couldn't go to my line manager for support and I often asked other members of the team for help if I needed it.

Every week was different and my workload was very mercurial. Most days I felt like I had too little work or sometimes the work was too difficult which made it easylose interest. Some days especially near deadlines I would have a lot to be doing which could be quite stressful although these were rare.

At the start of the year I felt I had very little responsibility and didn't really contribute much to the team, doing on trivial tasks. However, as the year progressed and team members started to leave I took on a lot more work and I felt like people depended on me.

I learnt a lot of useful skills that will contribute well in the future. Coding: SAS and analytical skills will definitely benefit me in the final year of my degree since I do a lot of work with computers and experimentation. Also, communication and the ability to present is very sought after so will prove very beneficial in my future career.

At the start of the week the office is general quite busy but everyone is very engrossed in their work. On Fridays however the office is practically empty with very few staff members coming in only if they have meetings etc and most people just choose to work from home.

The induction in to the role was very smooth and every was very welcoming in the team. However, I could have maybe benefitted from a bit more training and guidance since there were many times were i found myself confused or stuck on a piece of work, lacking background knowledge and understanding.

At the start of my placement there was a three day course to bring us up to speed with SAS but that was the extent of it. The rest was learnt on the job and a lot of the content in the course was quite obsolete. There were plenty of opportunities to shadow other areas of the business or do branch visits.

The location really didn't suit me and was probably the most frustrating part of the placement and this would deter me from considering Lloyds as a career path. If however my placement was somewhere more relevant to me i would have probably enjoyed it more and considered applying for the graduate scheme.

I got on well with my fellow placement students and we always went to lunch together however that was the extent of it and we hardly did anything outside of work. This was made difficult by living in very different areas so would require too much planning to be casual.

The one benefit of living in such a run down area was that it was incredibly cheap which meant that throughout the week my outgoings were very small. In terms of socialising, prices were much the same as most cities in the country other than London which wasn't too uninviting.

Was pretty disappointing since there was not a lot of options and most places had a pretty unattractive demographic. The only decent option for a good night would be to go into Birmingham but that would be a bit annoying because you'd have to worry about getting a train home making it only good for going for a meal and a few drinks rather than a night out.

There probably were but it wasn't something I tried to get involved with. Ideally, i would have joined a sports team but at the start of the placement i was injured and by the time i had fully recovered, there wasn't enough time left in the year to justify joining anything.