Work Experience Virtual Programme Review

My virtual experience involved a week full off exciting different workshops and lectures, teaching every candidate that got selected for it, the daily in's and out's of working at the bank, and all the extra things that HSBC does to further help the nation down to the local community.

Some training and skills I learnt from the experience, was how to work online with other people. Some other skills I learnt from the insight week was how bankers work, and what their actual job is, as well as the different variety of jobs HSBC offers, from banking to customer service and backend jobs

I enjoyed my virtual experience a lot. The whole insight week was full interesting speakers giving small TED talk size talks which were interactive and engaging with the audience. The workshops were thought-provoking and made me think about all the little processes that happen around me that I would have never thought about otherwise.

The virtual experience was very organised. Each candidate was emailed a timetable a week before the insight week, which entailed the structure of the whole week, with each seminar and workshop labelled. The timetable also included time for breaks throughout the day and an hour break for lunch, so that each candidate stays refreshed and energised

I learnt a lot about the company culture and what it would be like to work there from one of the many seminars that I attended which showcased daily life at HSBC. It showed how the company respected its employees, how it had a friendly office atmosphere and valued the employees concerns.

This insight week at HSBC helped me learn more about the different varieties of jobs available at HSBC and how I can work from finance all the way to human resources. One of the talks was from an employee who joined straight after their degree, and how they cycled through different jobs within HSBC to find the right one for him

I was not paid for this experience as it was a free virtual insight week. I had to apply through a series of forms, then went through a bunch of assessments to test my cognitive abilities, and then once passing all that, had a phone interview asking me questions to understand my thinking

A bunch of the seminars hosted by HSBC that I attended had many question and answer allocated time periods after the talk to help network with the employees and the speaker of that certain seminar. On the last day, some of the candidates were grouped up into small groups of 3 or 4 and were given time with an employee to network with

Yes

In general, the whole HSBC virtual insight placement week was very enjoyable and fulfilled the criteria I was looking within it. It taught me about the day to day basis of a bank, the jobs I could go into and what it entails, and what degrees I can and should do if I wanted to pursue that career path

Some tips and advice I would give to other candidates applying to HSBC is to make sure that they have enough interest in banking, and have other experience with insight weeks, so that they have a better chance of being selected as part of HSBC's virtual insight week and so that they have a better understanding of what the whole week is going to be about