RBWM Graduate Trainee Review

At the moment I am a Team Manager in a call centre, therefore day-to-day I have weekly check-ins with my team, monthly one-to-ones and coaching sessions, as well as a monthly team meeting. Then there are tasks such as absence reviews, giving feedback on complaints and answering any adhoc queries.

I have developed my communication skills, in particular the most effective and efficient way to communicate with my team. I have also developed my emotional intelligence, and how to deal with challenging conversations. As I have never done a leadership role before, I am learning different leadership skills, such as influencing and persuading and taking a strong stance from the front.

Both the graduate programme and the apprenticeship programme have been massive learning curves, but they do compliment each other well. At the moment, our assignments link to the placements we are completing, therefore the Kaplan workshops are very informative and supportive. It can be difficult managing the workload of the apprenticeship alongside the grad programme, but they have been flexile with deadlines.

At the beginning of our apprenticeship programme, it didn't seem to be very well organised - I didn't have much communication regarding next steps and when we'd be given more information about the assignments we're completing. Even now, we can get informed about the development workshops 2 weeks ahead, when it would be useful to have more notice.

I don't think that are employers are that well informed about the apprenticeship programme, are commitments to it and what's involved in terms of assignments and development workshops. When I started this role as a Team Manager, I had to explain what was involved in doing the Apprenticeship programme, and the expectation that we complete assignments outside of working hours.

My talent coach is very supportive, and I feel comfortable emailing her with any questions and we have regular check in calls to understand my progress and any support I may need. My talent coach will direct me to resources I can use to support my assignments and give me ideas of examples I can use.

I think the most useful part of completing this apprenticeship is the development workshop, as we get given different models and tools that we can take back and use in the workplace. It's good to share different examples with different people and learn what works best for them and what has been a success.

Yes we have a sports and social club, where you can sign up to receive emails about different events and getting reduced price tickets for various concerts and activities. As a grad community, we have a social committee who organise events to bring us together and there is also a strong charity link, so we can organise volunteering days.

Yes

Since I have started with HSBC it has been a very welcoming organisation, where I can be myself and show my personality. I'm very much a people person, so there's been great opportunities to meet different people and network. There's loads of development opportunities to grow and develop new skills.

I was completely myself in my interview, and honest if I didn't know an answer, but explained my thought process and how I came to that conclusion. I feel that they take an interest in your personal life, as well as professional, therefore they enjoy hearing about what you do outside of work, as well as what skills you can bring to the job.