Level 3 Risk & Compliance Officer Review

On a day to day basis, I am working with prestigious clients in order to help resolve their issues pertaining to the Financial Services landscape. This involves direct communications with clients and an enormous amount of responsibility afforded so early on in your career. Each day brings new challenges, and there is also a plethora of side-of-desk opportunities to get involved with to switch focus.

EY is a fantastic place to not only learn new skills that will equip you for a long and successful career, but also to develop and perfect existing ones which are regularly reviewed and called out in feedback cycles. The main skills demonstrated in this particular apprenticeship were flexibility, resilience, communicating and influencing, teamwork, analysis and problem solving, personal development, continuous improvement, delivering services and honesty and integrity.

I enjoyed my first apprenticeship programme to a great extent, I feel as though it was so directly applicable to the sector and job role that I was working in, particularly through the CII exams that I studied for and undertook. It was then important to reflect on the development that the progress through the apprenticeship course had brought about through the creation of my portfolio of evidence.

The apprenticeship programme is really well organised and structured, which was clearly defined at the beginning of the course to myself. It was also built to explore many areas of learning and techniques behind this, including two technical exams, revision sessions for this, training modules, handwritten portfolio evidence extracts, monthly check-in review calls with your designated talent coach, and finally spoken interviews and presentations at the end. It is a very well-rounded apprenticeship in that sense.

The support received from my employer was fantastic on the way to completion. We had regular sessions in place with our counsellors to track progress, as well as sessions with apprentices who were slightly older and had been there and completed the apprenticeship before, in order to gain tips and advice in how to complete the apprenticeship to the best of our ability and to make us aware of what was to come.

The support received from my training provider was decent on the way to completion. We had regular monthly sessions in place with our designated talent coach to track progress and discuss reflections on current affairs also which was interesting. The connection with the training provider was very much what you made it, in that if you kept the communications open and active then you could easily get advice and support. During the exam period, the use of technical knowledge sessions to consolidate learning was extremely helpful, and engaging, which ensured great results at the end of it.

As previously discussed, I believe that the qualification that I now have off the back of my apprenticeship is directly applicable to the job role that I perform, through first and foremost the exam preparation in the technical skills and knowledge that I would require to work in a firm and a sector like this. Through the portfolio and skills aspect of things, it encouraged reflection on the experiences I had gained and where I could improve knowledge and skills to better performance.

There are so many side-of-desk initiatives and activities that you can get involved with at EY to develop your personal brand and put your name out there. From my end, I am involved heavily in the creation of my home team's newsletter, ensuring that everyone is across all the exciting things that people in the team are doing from month to month, and to bring a bit of light relief to hectic weeks. I also lead my team's CSR effort, arranging really fun events to give time to and raise money for incredible causes. This is just scratching the surface.

Yes

EY is a fantastically inclusive place to work, with the ability to get involved and start in a plethora of different areas and service lines. Everyone that I have worked with to date is so friendly and committed to ensuring that young career's develop, and the responsibility received is earnt and linear to the point where you learn quickly, and are integrated from your first day. Learning and development among many other things is paramount.

I would encourage people to be openly themselves, to ensure that they are absolutely certain of where they see their career going and to shape that accordingly. I would encourage individuals to take every opportunity afforded to them, and to really look to immerse themselves in the EY values, aligning where appropriate, and expanding their networks with the fantastic people working here.