Graduate Review

I work on the graduate scheme at Santander, as a result I'm exposed to various aspects of the bank and chiefly find myself working in project roles. I have worked mainly within payments, business and corporate banking. As part of my role, I have been offered many training opportunities, with the apprenticeship being one of these.

I don't feel that I have learnt a huge amount of new things while being on the apprenticeship. The remote sessions often seem to be a bit of a shambles as we are normally waiting 20 mins for them to start. Quite often they are negatively impacted by technical issues. The face to face workshops are typically more effective and engaging.

There are some parts of the programme that are interesting and that have helped consolidate existing knowledge. But quite often the course as a whole feels quite disjointed, with little sense of direction or end goal. There seems to be a sense of winging the workshops and course as we go a long at times.

Very poorly - often we have been sent the wrong times and have had remote sessions on platforms that our network/wi fi does not support, as a result I would say of our first 10 or so remote sessions, only around 10% of that time was spent productively. For a lot of the time we could not even hear the instructors. This set the whole programme off on a bad foot. The face to face workshops were much better.

Our employers allow time for us to attend all the allocated workshops and remote training sessions, our line managers also sit in on all reviews. I don't think they've felt much benefit from us being on the course to date though. We are also given time to do our coursework when needed and having other people from work on the course is beneficial.

I personally feel very little - I am keen to get the qualification as it helps quantify a lot of the knowledge I have learnt while being at the bank in a formal qualification. However, I don't believe they have taught us huge amount. It feels like a very light course.

I do not feel that the training has helped contribute towards my current role much at all. I perhaps have a better understanding of wider data and technical issues - but in terms of actually helping with my current role, I would say that there has not really been much benefit.

There are networking, sporting and social activities to get involved in at work. However I do not really engage with these too much, except for charity events. There are often comms from the bank advertising such schemes and they are as a general rule of thumb widely available, I just choose not to go due to other commitments.

Yes

The job, company, ethos and opportunities are very good. There is real opportunity to develop and learn within the bank and lots of training is provided, some of it is really good, such as a lean six sigma course we have done. However I would not sell working for the bank on the merit of the apprenticeship scheme.

Focus on the banks behaviours and ethos. I would also recommend show that you're digitally capable as this is the direction of the bank. Being comfortable with data and showing a drive to be data driven would also be beneficial. Moreover I would recommend having a good general idea about the current market, other banks and competition etc.