Customer Credit Risk Analyst Review

I have not enjoyed this work placement and would not recommend my current team to other prospective students. I believe that the risk scheme overall is extremely useful and I have heard much more positive reviews from my fellow IPs. However, I had been placed in an unfortunate team meaning I was unable to enjoy the experience.

I do not feel valued by my colleagues at all. Every day when I come to work I feel completely isolated unless my colleagues want me to complete a piece of work for them. I find this extremely uncomfortable and in truth quite demotivating. A less hostile environment would provide a much better working atmosphere.

I have been given support and guidance but not always as well as I would have expected. I have tried to receive constant feedback from LBG on a monthly basis, but this was completely ignored until around 5 months later, naturally defeating the objective of asking for regular monthly feedback.

At the start of my placement, and I must say towards the end, I have not been busy at all. At times it can be extremely boring as there is not much to do. However, these lulls are often directly followed by high intensity workloads meaning I would be busy, and extremely stressed for multiple days or even weeks at a time.

Within my placement I have been given a range of responsibilities, which have increased in importance as the year has progressed. I started out being responsible for purely just business as usual activities but now I am responsible for more ad hoc requests from other, wider areas of the business.

I have really been able to improve my skills in computer programming software such as SAS and also within presentations. I have had the opportunity to present to a wide variety of audiences, ranging from my immediate team to much higher up in the business. This will be of high value in studying the remainder of my degree and beyond.

The office atmosphere as a whole was extremely lively and in other teams it is clear that they get along well and are social together. However, in my particular team the atmosphere is very different. There were no social aspects to my role and this lead to me feeling quite isolated.

The placement is set up really well by Pontoon. If I ever had any questions I was able to contact the employment agency and they were resolved very quickly. The team at Pontoon have been great and really made the placement set up run seamlessly, especially with the reviews and availability to be contacted.

Lloyds Banking Group preaches about development - yet I feel that this was a missed opportunity within my team as often I was complimented and told to be doing well only to receive a score lower than expected in my performance review. On another note, I have been able to partake in shadowing opportunities which I arranged myself.

Providing I did not work in my current team, I do believe that Lloyds Banking Group has great career prospects and I would be interested in seeking a career with them. The bank is so large that there are so many varied opportunities so it is highly likely that there will be something perfectly suited to you.

There was definitely a very good social scene amongst fellow placement students. Unfortunately, living 2 hours away from my placement it meant that I was unable to participate in as many activities as I would have liked. My fellow placement students did activities such as the three peaks challenge and the Otley run.

I am unable to really speak on the cost of living where my actual placement was based as I lived at home and did not live near to the office. However, the general area is fairly reasonable and is definitely much cheaper than other areas I have heard about previously.

I never experienced the nightlife as I lived at home so was around a two hour commute away from the location of the office. After hearing what others had to say in regards to the nightlife in the area that I worked I can say that it was good and reasonably priced.

There were various charity events put on by my fellow placement student colleagues throughout the year such as the three peaks challenge, bake sales and FIFA tournaments. Additionally, the placement students arranged social activities such as the Otley run and opportunities to watch the World Cup in the summer when our placement began.