collection advisor Review

My role and responsibilities are providing financial counselling to individuals in debt and planning different methods of pay-off by estimating time for debt liquidation. I counselled customers on personal financial problems, such as excessive spending and borrowing of funds, ensuing that caller concerns are actioned correctly and all parties are notified, following strict company policies and procedures and ensuring that legislative requirements are met. I speak to telephone banking team, back office team, John Lewis and mortgage team very often. My daily tasks are completing income and expenditure forms, reviewing accounts, check my email for updates, dealing with complaints, etc. HSBC does many things to support the locals, like cleaning the park, supporting animal shelter, etc.

I have developed my listening, speaking and writing skills as we do a lot of call training sessions, like marking my calls or listen to other people's calls. My manager and I would listen to 4 of my calls every month. From the sessions, I have been able to identify what my strengths and weaknesses are - using feedbacks from my manager to help improve my weaknesses. My apprenticeship course has helped developing my problem solving skills because I have learned a lot more about retail banking so now I have an depth understanding of how everything works, direct debit process, know your customer measures, switching service. Learning about retail banking has helped the flow of my conversation while on call, for example, if a customer were thinking of switching their account to somewhere else, I can advise the customer about the removal of lending beforehand so that nothing can affect their credit file. I have learned a lot of my role like attention to details, checking everything i have promised the customer i would do for them like cancelling direct debit, update their contact details, set up text alert, etc. or reviewing their accounts, spotting gambling transactions, or checking 24 months review of the account to confirm reason for delinquency.

I enjoy my apprenticeship programme a lot as it has given my first ever full time, earning more than the "apprenticeship wages" and receiving financial qualification at the end of the programme. After completion, I would have more opportunities in the financial industry with new found financial experience and qualification. I enjoy the variety and the parts of my job that involve aspects like problem solving and dealing with customers. It is rewarding to work in a business that i constantly evolving with the times

The programme is very organised and structure as there is a personal development time where I use to develop my knowledge and skills, participate in group activities to do more learning or joining other areas of HSBC for a day to gain more understanding of how things work - using this to help with my advancement and to apply what I have to learnt into my day to day role. There is a long term career progression for what as been provided for us to lean and till when we are ready to take the next step. The support towards my training has been very good.

I have received a lot of support from my employer. For example: in my job I am required to update my technical skill set on an ongoing basis. However, I have realised some of the technical skills are not up to the standards so I have made a request to my manager to do some training during my development time and he was happy to support, so now my technical skill set have improved a lot. This has helped me with my advancement at work.

The support i have received from my apprenticeship training provider is not excellent or bad because my trainer was mainly there to support us at the beginning of the apprenticeship like gave us an introduction, got us signed on to Tessello website and the apprenticeship course. Also, signed us off from the courses we have completed and gave us mock papers. However, I do like my apprenticeship programme and how it operates because i have learned to be more independent, actively using my initiative skills to get work done and to work towards my qualifications.

There are many social activities at HSBC like work Christmas party, cakes selling events, pyjamas day, Halloween dressing up to work, Christmas jumper dat

There are many social activities at HSBC like work Christmas party, cakes selling , pyjamas day, Halloween dressing up, Christmas jumper day, bringing kids to work day and professional networking evens like visiting HSBC headquarter day. The extra curricular activities to get involved in HSBC is very good. However, for my apprenticeship programme, there have not been many activities that I can get involved. For example, when we had an apprenticeship networking event, I did not get to go because i was not selected to attend as they had a "first come first serve" rule. So all of my colleagues got selected apart from me and since then, we have not been invited to any other networking events.

Yes

I would recommend HSBC to my friends because benefits are decent, very good management, productive and innovative working environment where everyone is valued and made to feel part of the business culture. The job may be very stressful at time but i have received a lot of support managers across the floor and colleagues that are willing to go out of their ways to support me. Currently there are a lot of promotion opportunities as well. Also, HSBC focuses on staff's mental health and well being of individuals, good focus on work life balance, diversity and inclusion. Furthermore, great teamwork across the company and we always being updated with any developments

The advice I would give to others applying to HSBC is the training may be extremely stressful due to learning about procedures, how to deal with customers, how to navigate around the systems, learn about a lot products like bank account, basic account, loans, credit card, business account, business loan, business credit card, dealing with john lewis loan, credit card and more. But, HSBC is very understanding, the managers and experienced colleagues will support you, they will give tips, advices and show you how to do things that have helped them. The application process was very simple, 3 stages, questionnaires, call interview and in person interview. The interview stage was very quick and I got offered straight away and you will be supported throughout the apprenticeship HSBC will give you apprenticeship time every month so that you can get your coursework done at work.