Corporate Finance Analyst Review

RSM was a great company to work for, they made sure you were fully involved in team work from the start of your placement year. You were given lots of opportunities for training, this training included excel courses and accountancy courses. These courses developed my skills hugely. The Corporate finance team I was in at RSM were all very nice and made feel part of the team. You were given lots of work to do and given work that expanded your knowledge base.

I felt very valued by my colleagues, I was used in every project and felt like I was doing manful work that was helping my colleagues. I attend meetings for the projects I was on, allowing me to have an insight into professional meetings with high profile clients. Throughout my year at RSM my work load was greater and more complexed due to my colleagues trusting me more with work, helping me develop further as a corporate finance analyst

I was given plenty of support throughout my year at RSM, my colleagues were always happy to answer my questions if I had any and were always happy to help me out if I got stuck on something complexed, yet they always pushed me and didn't just give me the answer. On top of this accountancy and excel training was provided for me, so that I could be better at my job and understand more. Management also told you where you needed to improve on as well.

At the start of placement, I wasn't that busy because I didn't understand the work and I joined half way through a project. However, from project to project I got more and more busy. This led to me having long days of coming in early and finishing late, which I enjoyed. But with corporate finance you never know when the next project will come in so some days after a project is completed you may have no work but that is just the nature of corporate finance.

At the start of placement you were given little responsibility due to the complexity of the work and your colleagues would always check your work before you could do anything else. However, as you become more trained up and get more experience you are given lots of responsibility and at times you maybe given full responsibility on a project while someone in the team quickly finishes a project they are on. The responsibility you get the better the placement year gets.

My excel skills developed massively in my placement, this will help with me my economics degree because it will allow me to better organise things and if there are any excel projects I will be very good at them. Along with this my accountancy knowledge has dramatically improved due to the courses we were put on while on placement and in my economics degree I have an accountancy module which will be very helpful. On top of this my knowledge deal processes and companies financials and general financial maths has increased hugely and this will help with certain modules in my final year.

In my team the atmosphere is great, we knew when we needed to work hard and not talk as we had a lot of work to get on with, but we also knew when people started to loose concentration and would just need a little break so you could have a chat and then crack on with work again. This created the perfect working atmosphere for myself and others, and this allowed us to get the most out of each other work wise.

The placement year was very organised with lots of training courses and opportunities to meet other placement students in different offices. This was seen with the first week you go on a corporate finance bootcamp and you meet all graduates and placement students from across the country in RSM. Along with this the training provided was very well organised over the course of the year so it wasn't all in big one lump where you get overwhelmed with the amount of information you have been given.

RSM invested a vast amount into training and development for all levels, for myself they did lots of excel courses which helped me so much especially at the start of the year. Along with the accountancy courses at Heathrow were also invested into and were very helpful. Along with this lots of online training was organised for new starters, helping us to get a hang of what was going on and also they provide a week long bootcamp to help us understand the job we would be doing and what they expect from us.

Due to Covid 19 the opportunity or a graduate job were taken away from me which was a huge shame as I really wanted to stay on there as I loved the work I was doing. You couldn't have predicted this which was a huge shame. However, if there was Covid 19 then I feel the future employment opportunities would have been great and graduate jobs would have been available and also once on the graduate job, future promotions look possible too.

There was very good social scene with In my team as we always got along, this meant we often went out for meals and drinks together which was always nice. Along with this you get to know other graduates very well within your office and get to get out for drinks with them as well. The company also organised Christmas parties and other social events, allowing you to socialise a lot and get to know lots of new people.

I was in reading so it was relatively expensive but not quite London prices. I lived at home so couldn't comment not his area too much but with regards to drinks it was not too expensive. With regards the socialising in the area, there were lots of pubs and clubs around which made it very fun when the weekends came, you could go out with people from your office and let your hair down after a hard week at work.

Nightlife was okay in reading, very good pubs around which was amazing, Clubs could do with improvement. However, to get to London from reading is very quick so if you want a better nightlife you could easily travel to clubs in London as they are generally better than Reading ones but there are plenty of pubs and nice restaurants to choose from in reading if you want to stay there and it isn't that expensive either.

At RSM there were lots of sports clubs such Football and running, these were open to anyone and were always good fun and a good way to get to know people better. Along with this RSM provided a sports day against other offices which was a huge amount of fun and involved lots of different sports such as rounders, netball and football. This was a great way to get to know people and a goof laugh as it wasn't too competitive.