Relationship Management Support Review

My role is to assist Relationship Managers. These Relationship Managers are the "middleman", if you will, between a business and our bank, NatWest (RBS). The Relationship Manager has to attend to customer needs and ensure that products are delivered to meet these needs. As an assistant, I help the Relationship Managers do their job: whether this be formulating a meeting brief, calling a customer to discuss a query they've made or researching a new business prospect.

Yes - I've developed my interpersonal skills. In my role I have to deal with customers both face to face and over the telephone, whilst also working effectively with colleagues and other businesses (i.e. the learning provider).

I very much enjoy my programme. My team is very accomodating and have made me feel very welcome which has helped me a lot in settling in to this role. I find myself challenged on a daily basis and I'm learning at a rapid rate.

I feel valued by RBS - my director and regional director have taken a lot of time in making sure I'm enjoying my role and asking for updates on my progress to see if there's anything more that they can do to help me. Other colleagues have also assisted me a lot in my day to day role and are always happy to help whenever I ask.

Being honest, the programme hasn't been the most thoroughly organised but this, for me, is a positive. It allows me to be very flexible and gain a very broad and wide ranged understanding of the Bank's operations and other departments.

I'm aligned a 'Skills Coach' who I have regular contact with to ensure that I'm getting all of the help that I can and to see how I'm doing with the learning side of the Apprenticeship.

I receive lots of support from my employer. There's various information on the Intranet which allows me to direct my queries to the correct department - whether it's pay related, work grievances or technical IT issues.

My package is surplus to my needs, which is great because I can afford lots of things that previously I couldn't. I go on holidays regularly, I can afford a nice car, I can afford to go out to eat often and have a good social life. My advice would be to take advantage of the pay you're given whilst you're young enough to have little responsibilities.

Yes, there's plenty of opportunities out side of work if you look for them - RBS has many different schemes (e.g. Focused Women, RBS Ambassadors, Young Banker's Association) for you to get yourself involved in. The only issue is that many of these "extra curricular" activites take place in the main hubs of RBS i.e. Edinburgh, London, Manchester et cetera, so if you're not located near those hubs then it's hard to be involved in these schemes.

Yes

I would recommend RBS to a friend because it's a great company to work for. There is great career progression available if you work hard, there's many, many different job roles to fit anyone's strengths and the rewards package is great for people of our age.

If you make it to the interview stages - relax. The job role requires you to speak to people in a relaxed and professional manner, so if you can mirror this in your interview whilst meeting the education requirements, you'll be just fine.