I would love to know more about your transition to your current role and what you wished you knew before starting up.

Hi Ehigie, hope you're well. Prior to joining Lloyds, I went to University of Bristol where I studied Economics and Management graduating in 2022. It wasn't my initial plan to get into banking - in my second year I applied to a few internships with one of them being at HSBC on the Commercial Banking Scheme, I wasn't expecting to get it but luckily received an offer and ended up really enjoying working for a bank which led me to apply to Lloyds the year after. Lloyds really attracted me because the programme seemed really focussed on providing graduates meaningful work where you can actually create a positive impact for your team. I thankfully received an offer and joined the programme in September 2022, now in my third rotation. What I wish I knew before starting was the importance of soft skills and attention to detail. People often over look soft skills but I now recognise how vital it is that you have good communication stakeholder management skills in addition to having exceptional attention to detail. Therefore, the advice I can provide to you is not to overwhelm yourself as I have done this in the past which impacted the quality of work I was sending to colleagues. It is more important to take on less work but ensure that every piece of work you send out has been checked for mistakes and is of high quality. I hope this helps!

Thank you very much, this is very helpful. I’m awaiting a status update on the strength based video interview I did, it’s been a while now though but I’m hopeful. Thanks again Parsia.