Degree Apprentice (rotational program) Review

The role of a degree apprentice in Visa is to get involved in the teams day-day activities. Of course, this varies massively from team to team but a few examples might be: Doing a client support case that involves looking up transactions on Visa systems to be able to report back any issues, building a spreadsheet to create KPI's for the project you are working on, updating client development notes on the management system, selecting which partners you can work with to increase card payments and much much more. Visa being a multinational company means that you can try your hand at anything and everything.

Yes of course, you natrally increase soft skills such as listening, interacting with colleagues, powers of persuasion and being professional as well as harder skills like being able to apply your knowledge of the payments industry to projects and picking the relevant information that relates to what your working on, to spreadsheet skills, learning how to write business plans and reports etc.

With everyone working from home this year it has been tougher to get the most out of the program. Generally, the departments are interesting, however, some can be quite admin based and repetitive though other teams can be much more interesting. The degree side is a low point of the program due to the fact it can be quite boring, however, it should be noted this could probably be said about uni work in a normal uni.

Having 6-month rotations is a very good idea and a great way to get to know about Visa. I would say it is one of the biggest highlights of the program. The degree's structure also makes sense and is ok, however, there is no real break in-between years, which can be slightly frustrating. As far as structure provided by HR there isn't a huge amount, once you go into a rotation generally you are quite independent and absorbed by the team, there isn't to a great extent an HR skeleton around the rotations that consist of training or any real contact.

There is a lot of support around the program in the sense that everyone is aware that we are on the program, the degree side is well set out and there is enough time allocated towards it. When we are in the business rotations the team and managers are often very good with making sure you are well integrated and ensuring that you get the most out of your rotation. You can ask any questions you want and are able to make mistakes.

It is generally quite a light touch engagement since it is all online but we are able to reach out and have access to 1-1 sessions with both the module tutor and also a specialist ACE team who are very good. We also have a skills coach who is our go-to for anything on the program and can help us with what we need. While never having been to uni, I would say you get much less support than if you were on a traditional degree course.

To be honest, not at all, if anything it hinders the work you do in the role due to the amount of time it requires a lot of it jumping through hoops. It teaches absolutely no technical hard skills and is all about management styles that in our current position at Visa is not at all helpful and is hard to practise or utilise at Visa. It would be better to have a more balanced mix of tangible skills and management skills.

The social side of Visa is pretty poor, there are limited events run and the feel of them have been quite 'school tripesk'. There is a football team, but that is about it. Through individual teams are better at doing social events though it depends on the team. There are lots of professional networking events that happen at Visa. So you are more likely to form better relationships with your colleagues rather than peers on the apprentice program.

Yes

Visa is a huge company with lots of different areas to try out. Payments is a growing industry so it is moving in the right direction. There is a lot you can learn here. Of course, it is not perfect and everything is VERY slow and projects take a long time to happen, also Visa's business model is very streamlined so it focuses on its core revenue streams and isn't very good at fluidly looking at other streams. the 6-month rotations are very useful!

Be enthusiastic in the interviews and assessment centres, if possible do some research about payments in general before you apply. Build up your CV with as much as possible while you can to give yourself the best chance. Make sure you properly think about the pro's and con's of the program as 4 years is a big commitment. It is a management degree, not business management so will be much different from a business management uni course.