Finance Graduate Review

I am currently spending my time split between Accounting & Analysis as an Expense accounting Assistant and the Financial Control team as a Finance Business Partner. The role involves the month end spent with the accounting team preparing several spreadsheets on excel regarding payroll, prepayments, accruals, posting journals all to be ready for the finance directors to deliver their results. Moreover, the work I do in financial control is based again on impactful and meaningful work. RSA was recently taken over by Intact a Canadian insurer. Thus, we must update our controls to be compliant with the Canadian accounting standards. Controls are put in place to mitigate or eliminate anything impacting our result as a company. Thus, the rest of the month I am spending my time updating control documents and ensuring we are compliant with the new standards while being offered to improve my skills across many different programmes like Ariba, SAP, Qlik and GRC.

Yes I have learnt to guide my way through programmes like Ariba, Qlik, GRC, SAP, Blueworks etc all within 6 months since I have begun here. I have also learnt a great deal of accounting knowledge which compliments the financial accounting module I am currently studying towards for my acca diploma (paid on behalf of RSA)

I am absolutely amazed by how amazing this programme is. When looking at grad roles out of uni I was looking at which companies offer meaningful and impactful work to build my experience. It was never about the pay or location or name of the company. My number one aim was to find a company that would take a risk and genuinely spend time training me to deal with work that has real world impacts on delivering results etc. I found RSA to be the perfect match for this and I can confirm I have learnt a lot more in 6 months at RSA than I have through my other intern roles I held before I finished university.

The programme is organised quite well. Given RSA has annually offered grad role opportunities, I feel RSA have absolutely nailed the programme. Not a day goes by wasted. I feel most productive than I have ever been and really recommend this programme. I learn something new everyday

I am offered the right amount. I am not spoon fed information nor left to fend for my self. I feel RSA and the team offer me the right amount of guidance and give me the opportunity to also understand the task at hand to develop key independent skills and taking initiative.

Quite a lot of guidance is provided by my talent coach and the tutors toward my qualification. I have tools at my disposal with quick response times from the key individuals contacted. I am able to call or email the student services team if I have a questions. Every query of mine has been answered thus far.

The qualification compliments my work really well! I remember only last week I had covered prepayments and accrual in my text book when studying. I then remember completing my first exam questions relating to this topic. At first it was quite difficult to understand with my lack of prior accounting knowledge. However, the following week I had begun to learn how to prepare the prepayment and accrual files at work. This really helped me understand the topics I study in a real world context. I find this really useful and important for my learning.

Many activities are available. I currently have involved myself in charity volunteering work with the team, planning and preparing ideas and events for charity. I have also been told about a sponsored run by RSA will soon be available. We also recently held weekly sports games to predict which football team is to win the match the coming week. Sports activities are something that have also been offered in the past.

Yes

I have never felt more respected. I feel apart of a family not just a number on a HR register (my biggest fear). Career progression is everything to me and at RSA theres just that! With flexible ways of working and rewarding programmes, I truly feel the work I do for RSA is meaningful and impactful. The work i do impacts results and drives analysis of data conducted by other teams. I recommend RSS to anyone who is looking to build important skills and an abundance of useful working experience.

Be yourself. Research the company. Get in touch with any current grads on the scheme or staff that work here before applying. Get a sense of their experience and understand the core values of RSA. The only way to succeed is to be open to failure. I applied for over a 100 applications before RSA, most of which I wasn’t able to get to the end stage off. However, I learnt from them and understood where to improve. Do more mock tests and mock interviews. Prepare answers to normal typical interview questions. But most importantly be natural and be authentic.