Virtual Banking Placement Review

I enjoyed the virtual experience quite a lot. It gave me a greater understanding of the world of banking and having had experience in a bank before, I was able to build upon this. Also, it gave me an insight to what banking has been like during our current situation as people can clearly not visit banks as regularly as they used to so many tasks with clients took place online rather than face to face.

I did feel quite valued during my time at the company. After a period of training at the start, I was then able to work with clients, having meetings with them and even helping them with their problems; these tasks are similar to what an employee at the company would be expected to do so I was working on a similar level to them and this was really good for me as it pushed me to work harder.

I did receive a lot of guidance and support during my experience. At the start of the placement, they taught us the main concepts we needed to know before beginning the placement and then they filled in the gaps and taught us all the extra stuff while doing tasks on the job and I feel like this method of teaching was very effective as it laid out solid foundations for us that we could build on through tasks.

I think that I developed many skills that will indeed be useful beyond my degree studies. Firstly, the knowledge I gained about banking will not only be useful to me if I decide to pursue a career in banking but it will help me in whichever sector of finance I choose to go into as a solid understanding of how banking works will form a foundation of any finance job. I also feel like the communication skills I learnt from talking with clients will be useful.

I think that the virtual experience was very well structured. They started off with teaching us the main things we needed to know to do tasks at the company. They taught us right from the beginning so even people with no prior knowledge about banking were able to understand. From here, we were put into tasks with employees and then eventually with clients and this helped to apply the knowledge and also fill any gaps in knowledge.

Generally the atmosphere was quite friendly. Although the experience was online, the employees were always very friendly online and it was quite easy to talk to them. It was quite awkward at first, as any job would be, exacerbated by the conditions of it being virtual, but I warmed up to them quite quickly and I was able to talk to them and the other placement students such that I could learn from them and have fun.

In terms of personal training and development, the company did invest quite a lot in me as they allowed me to take part in actual conversations with clients and attend meetings with them. This felt like a great investment from them as they risked their company image so that I could learn. This also showed how much they trusted me and how they could see my potential as they would not have trusted me if they did not.

The virtual experience did do a decent job of helping me to understand what it would be like to have a full time role with them. I was introduced to the many different tasks that I might be expected to do and even got to partake in tasks that involved clients. Furthermore, I got an insight of what working at Santander is currently like, with most things being virtual and very few meetings at the branch being in person.

The virtual experience did not help me to understand company culture a lot. The only things that I picked up about company culture were just things that I could infer from what I was shown but these tended to be quite generic. It would have been nice of them to go through their company values at the start of the virtual experience so as I progressed through the tasks, I could apply these values and see where these values could be applied.

The content was quite valuable in deciding my career path. I was not really certain on a career in banking prior to this placement but this placement made banking seem quite appealing to me and I may consider it as a possible career route now. However, this experience was mainly based around retail banking and it would have been nice to be able to experience other kinds of banking to help narrow down this rather wide sector.

The virtual experience was not paid and I did not have any expenses that needed to be reimbursed.

There were opportunities for networking and meeting other employees of the company. Once a week, one of the employees would talk to us about their experiences working at Santander and they would also talk about how they got to where they are now i.e. the career route they took to get to their current job. We were able to ask questions and talk to them and this was a really great form of networking as it was also beneficial for our careers.

The networking opportunities were really good. I got the opportunity to also meet higher ranking members of the branch in the weekly sessions that they did and this was quite useful for networking. Furthermore, the employees were really kind and were willing to take many different questions to help us succeed in our careers. They were also willing to talk to us about potential paths for us which was quite useful as it can be quite daunting leaving university and not knowing where to go.

I did not really find out about many activities that employees can get involved in outside of work.

I would most definitely recommend this virtual experience to someone who is interested in either banking or finance. It gives you a great insight into the world of banking and it gives you an even deeper feel into what the world of banking is like now, during our current situation. Furthermore, there are plenty of networking opportunities to learn from employees of the company and get advice from them. On top of this, the placement really helped to improve my communication skills from talking to both the clients and the employees of the company.