Risk Management Analyst Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my year-long placement at Sony. I learnt so much on placement and because I was there for 12-13 months, I was treated like a full-time member of staff and felt very valued. I was very fortunate to have received training paid for by Sony and attended external webinars/talks hosted by external companies. I was also lucky enough to be part of a really sociable team, but generally, all the people in the office are friendly. I was based in Weybridge, which has about 500 employees on site, so I loved being in the busy office.

I felt very valued by my colleagues, in Finance especially, we weren't really considered 'interns' as we were part of team for 12-13 months. I also had my own individual roles and responsibilities and lead several projects in the second half of my placement, dissimilar to other companies where an internship consists of shadowing someone else and helping them with their daily tasks. I was trusted to contact various areas of the business to arrange meetings without my manager present and generally felt very empowered.

At the beginning of my placement, all interns have a two week handover period where they are trained up by the previous intern. However, I didn't have an intern to take over, so my Manager blocked out two weeks of her own time to train me up. They had prepared slide decks to explain each of my areas to me as well as introducing me to the entire Finance department.

As my sub-department was relatively new, there was always something to do. We were always trying to expand our scope. In times where there wasn't very much operational work going on, there was always lots of research/planning I could have been doing. Throughout the year, I was taking on more and so eventually I did have quite a few projects ongoing.

My own roles and responsibilities were established towards the beginning of my placement and I took on more work as the year went on. I was eventually leading several projects in the second half of my placement. On over a dozen occasions I presented my work to Senior Management and a few times to the Head of Sony Global Finance and Accounting.

I believe the skills I learnt will heavily assist me in obtaining a graduate scheme. I have built on my professionalism, organisation and presentation skills the most, received excel training and attended external webinars all of which I can put on my CV and recall in interviews. I also think that taking the work ethic that I developed in the office back to university will help massively with my studies.

I was based at the Weybridge site which has around 500 employees so the office was always busy. We had a really good canteen, cafe and the interns liked to use the fun room a lot. There are also other perks of having such a big office such as an onsite launderette, a nap room and onsite parking.

From a HR perspective, I think the placement could have been a bit more organised. HR would organise events for the interns which were good but there wouldn't be any communication with our managers so I was having to let my manager know what was going on a lot and ask for some time to work on the intern project and days off for intern days out. Luckily, I had a good relationship with my manager so this didn't affect me as much.

Excel Level 2 training was paid for by Sony which was great as I now have a certificate that I can reference in interviews/my CV. This was something that I had to request however and did take about 6-7 months to actually happen. I know quite a few other interns did other training in PowerPoint and other tools.

The Finance graduate scheme at Sony seems okay, it works on a rotation basis where you spend 3-4 months in each sub-department for two years. You also get to do a ACCA qualification paid for by Sony. I personally, find that 3-4 months is far too short to spend in each department and that the various departments can't afford to invest in training you up properly since you'll have to leave a couple of months later so I found that the graduates were doing more admin/menial tasks.

In total across two offices, there were about 36 interns and 10 or so graduates. I found the social scene to be quite good, we would have daily tea breaks and go to the pub every so often. We also has a few house parties, although socialising outside of work proved to be quite difficult as we all lived quite far apart.

The local pubs were quite expensive, the office is based in Weybridge but definitely had London prices. Pints were about £5-6. Thankfully, there was also a weatherspoons which was much more reasonable. Restaurants in Weybridge weren't too expensive and there was lots of choice so my team ended up going out for lunch every couple of weeks.

There isn't much nightlife in Weybridge. There was more of a pub scene which was still quite fun when there is lots of the office out. Most would just go out in Surbitton, Kingston or Clapham and then get taxis back but nights out didn't happen very often in big groups.

With London just a 20-30 minute train away, I'd say there are lots of activities people could get involved in. There is also an onsite gym that lots of us use which is quite nice in the evenings and at lunch time. Sony also has a run club which I joined for a bit. If you wanted a bigger gym, there is a David Lloyds just round the corner which is meant to be really nice too.