Financial Analyst Review

I hvae greatly enjoyed my time as a finance placement student for experian. The responsibility has been rewarding and the team in which I work are very kind and were sure to put in the effort to make sure I was comfortable with my processes. I feel like I have gained invaluable experience which I cannot imagine you could get in a classroom environment.

I work within a global team and everyone, from the people I sit with to the people across the world were very welcoming and made an effort to ensure I was comfortable with all my processes. Within the team, I have been given responsibility over the Balance Sheets and a large section of the P/L which has made this placement very rewarding as I understand how my work affects the team and how it fits into the big picture that my team and I work towards.

I work within a small team of 5, and everyone in this team has been very helpful. Initially I had a month handover period with the previous student who explained all my processes and walked me through them. Since then, everyone in the team has ensured I have full understanding of any process they give me, usually in the form of a 1-on-1 meeting to run through it.

At the start of my placement when I was not entirely sure on my mid month processes it was fairly slow. However as soon as the month end rolled around it was extremely busy and since then I have better understood my processes and been able to easily keep myself busy during mid month.

The placement role within the team is a permenant role which gets passed from student to student. This meant that there was some proccesses supporting the rest of the team but I was also given a large amount of responsibilities myself, including owning the balance sheet, a large section of the P/L, overtime filing and various other responsibilites.

This placement has given me a practical understanding of a lot of the things that I had learned in university as well as massively improving my excel skills. This will help me in my final year for topics relating more to accounting and also give me an advantage in a lot of the empirical finance due to the excel skills I have developed.

There are several offices in Nottingham however mine was located just outside of Nottingham in Ruddington. It had a good atmosphere with lots of town halls and events in the canteen however it was separate from the other placement students and did not have any graduates or apprentices so there were not many others near my age or experience.

The work placement was organised well as it is a permanent role within the team meaning that they have allocated set responsibilities and is quite robust. There is a month handover period with the previous placement student either side and the boss set out a general time line of what he expects early on. However it is not a placement scheme that syncs the role with other interns within the company

Experian invested a good amount in training and development shown by a long handover period and compulsory Scrum and Agility training. As well as this, there are plenty of training courses available on the internal client elevate, in addition to lots of presentations from big companies such as Amazon about technology relevant to the field.

There are not graduate jobs offered within my team for a role but I believe there are some jobs available scarcely. However I believe a lot of the jobs are located in Nottingham with a smaller office in London which is where I would prefer to work. I am unsure about opportunities within different roles.

There were around 15 placement students this year and there were a few meetups in the form of volunteering or lunch's organised by HR. Outside of work there were a few meetups for things like previous students leaving dos, Christmas parties and birthdays. However, as my office was separate to the one that the other students worked in, it was a challenge to keep up with other students.

The cost of living is a lot cheaper than London as I was paying around £400 a month for accommodation. It was cheaper socialising costs than I was used to as well, with the cost of a pint being a lot cheaper and good options for things to do such as mini golf and cinema scattered around.

I lived with a few students who went to the university of Nottingham so I had quite a good time on nights out in Nottingham. There are a lot of clubs and something for everyone, with drinks being cheaper than I was used to. As well as this Ubers were dirt cheap and all the clubs were close enough.

There were a lot of socials organised with work colleagues after work hours as well as some 5 a side and rugby teams. Outside of work, there were a few things to get involved in such as ice Hockey matches, Nottingham Forrest games and a few other entertainment venues. I did not personally get involved in any activities outside of work