Margherita .

From studying management to landing my dream job

I studied Business Management and Mandarin for my undergraduate degree and Business and Finance for my Masters. The more I studied the more I wanted to explore different areas of management or finance, there were too many things that interested me. When I finally had to apply for jobs there were so many options, and it was impossible to pick just one, I wanted to do everything! Joining the consumer banking graduate programme has been the perfect decision to explore all the different roles available in consumer banking and learn by practicing what are the things that interest me the most.

I engage with stakeholders in the bank to help products embed changes

For my first rotation I mostly work with the bank products such as Personal Current Accounts, Loans, Savings etc. We help these teams to engage with all stakeholders impacted by the changes for example to communicate, implement and embed these changes in the smoothest way possible. We try considering every part of the bank that might be affected and communicate with them in a simple way trying to help them to understand the change. We work really close with products as well as with our telephony and branch colleagues that are the one that interfaces with customers and are mostly affected by the changes.

Engaging with so many parts of the bank and always learn something new

You get to know so many different teams in the bank every day. I really appreciate the holisitic outlook this placement gives me, since I only joined recently it helps me to understand deeper how the bank works, the culture and how all the teams are interconnected. No days are the same and every day it feels like I'm learning new things and new aspects of the bank.

Try, try and keep trying

From my experience resilience is the most important thing that helps me to get to the objectives. Sometimes things are not easy but if you really want something keep trying, ask for help if needed and push yourself. Don’t give up easily but also don’t be too harsh on your self when things don’t go as planned, sometimes it happens and you can’t control it. If you did everything in your power to reach what you wanted to and it still didn’t happen it wasn’t meant to be.