Student Review

The work experience included an online lesson which outlined the job roles available should I have picked accounting in uni and gone on to do it in the future. They went through the daily timetable of a typical accountant and allowed us to ask questions about their lives giving us insight into there careers.

I learnt many skills to do with how to plan my day and weeks in order to be most efficient in completing my tasks. I also managed to learn key skills required in uni and in the accounting world in general. This has allowed me to integrate these skills into my life and has helped me with my education thus far.

The work experience was held over zoom meetings as it was during the COVID lock down periods. This ruined the experience slightly as it wasn't as immersive and so I couldn't learn and experience as much. However without this the skills were still taught and I have implemented them even though the actual experience wasn't as good.

In terms of organisation it was very well done. As we were at home doing the work experience we were able to have larger breaks but we couldn't network through them unlike we may have been able to before. But the day was scheduled well with lots of breaks.

When going through the daily timetable of the accountants working there I learnt a lot about the companies values and how they take care of their employees. However it did seem as though the timetable wasn't as comprehensive and was rather simple and basic for our level. So for next time give the timetable in more detail so we can learn more about the company.

The work experience did enlighten me as to what was available in this industry and how I could grow within it. I had an insight into the tasks I would be responsible for taking control of and the ways in which we would end up going about it. I also found out about which unis would be best for the course,

As the experience was held over zoom there was no need to be reimbursed . No travel was involved and zoom was a free service. As a student it would have been nice to be paid for attending the experience as I had to miss school at the time and this did hinder me slightly.

As we were doing the experience online there was no ability for us to network in person. Unfortunately due to this and the fact that we were studying over zoom meant that no one was able to connect with or have proper conversations with other people in the meet. Although linkedin profiles were shared at the end of the meet.

Yes

Although many of my experiences were hindered by the COVID pandemic and this prevented me from utilising many opportunities which this experience would have otherwise provided I did manage to learn a lot about the culture values and lifestyle as an employee of HSBC. For this reason I think it would be useful for people to go to this work experience.

I would advise them to research the company and the role prior to going to the experience to allow them to ask better questions which are more in depth. This would allow them to get more of what they need out of the experience and allow it to be more beneficial to them. I would also encourage them to network as much as possible.