Student finance placement Review

My role was to work on daily admin tasks within the treasury department ensuring that processes were followed correctly and that everything was completed professionally. I worked with members of my team to process high value payments to external counterparties through different methods. I also processed any confirmations for deals that had taken place within the treasury team and confirmed that these matched what the counterparty had. I had the responsibility of around 15 different tasks on a daily basis. As well as this I had a year long project I was working on with other members of the early talent team.

One of the main skills I have developed is time management. Working 9 to 5 has allowed me to get into a better routine and also working within a business has shown me how the time I take to do things also affects other people. This has allowed me to understand how to organise my time better for tasks that needed to be done. I have noticed better relationships with team members as I have developed this skill. I have also built on the Excel skills that I had from university by working with it every day and completing a range of different tasks on this.

Once I was trained on all of the daily tasks I was given the responsibility of working on them on my own without the need for anyone to check. This showed that I was trusted with the same tasks as other members of the team and that I was trusted to process the payments of high value. I was also given the responsibility of training a new member of staff when they joined the team. This built my confidence up and showed that my manager had confidence in me to teach the skills I knew to another member.

I was given a lot of support from my manager and other team members when working on the daily tasks as I was new to this and didn't know what a lot of it meant. My questions were always answered to a high standard which helped develop my knowledge and understanding of the role I was working in. I was also given a mentor for the year which gave me a lot of support on personal development and ensuring I got the most out of my placement. This was through working on my CV, interview skills, getting around the business etc. This was also beneficial as it taught me a lot of things I don't see at university and working in my role.

This was great. On the 2 days that I worked in the office it was nice to speak to other members of the team in person and also speak to other areas of the business. We sat with another team so it was nice to speak to them and see what they were working on as well as my team. The atmosphere was good as you could always hear people laughing and talking to their teams

I thoroughly enjoyed my placement at Newcastle Building Society. I was given the opportunity to develop a lot of my skills and understand how the business works. I spent a lot of time with lots of other areas of the business such as group finance, business information etc which helped me gain a clearer understanding of what I wanted to do after university. The placement also helped me grow as a person and a potential future employee as I now know what it is like working in a business environment and have developed a lot of my personal skills too.

Yes

To be yourself and to research the company to make sure it is the right place for you.