Wayne B.
About me
| Wayne B. | |
| Economics and Related Studies | |
| Economics | |
| Undergraduate | |
| James | |
| 2009 | |
| United Kingdom |
My employment
| Finance Analyst | |
| Edwards | |
| United Kingdom | |
| 2011 |
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A day in the life of a Finance Analyst in the United Kingdom
My career history
I have been hired as a finance graduate. The scheme will last two years and enable me to see as much of the business as possible. My first placement lasted 8 months where I was working for the Financial Planning and Analysis team where I was able to get involved with the 5 year plan and the budget process - something I really enjoyed since I have an interest in high level activity. I am currently on my second placement in Brno (Czech Republic) which I started March 16th 2012 and will have the opportunity to see many transactional layers of the business (Acounts payable/receivable, cash collection), spend some time in internal audit and also among the legal team for a short 6 week placement back to the UK when I will also have to sit my first CIMA accountancy exams in May. Future placements are yet to be decided, but they will probably be among the departments of Sales, Marketing, Investor Relations and Business Development.
Courses taken since graduation
MA Economics, Politics and Philosophy
Where I hope to be in 5 years
I am still young enough in my career of having the luxury of having not made up my mind. I will either move away from finance more into the commercial side of the business or I will move into investment and M&A.
My advice to students considering work
Get involved with student life. Aside from it being good for your employment prospects, it will also be a lot of fun. If you balance a serious society, like the debate club, with a more fun society, such as skydiving, you will mix with a wide variety of people and so you will be more adaptable in the future, this will certainly show up in interviews.
What I do
I have been hired as a Finance Graduate on a scheme that lasts two years, and at date of writing (2.04.2012) I have been here for 8 months.
Placement 1 (July 11 - March 12) : Placement with Financial Planning and Analysis - this basically means I contributed to forecasting and budgeting. My projects were long term and so had a number of stages to them. There have been no day-to-day duties. One project required the modelling of the budget balance sheet and cash flow forecast for all of the entities in the group that I work for. This required learning a great deal about technical accounting procedures and also about certain IT systems (BPC). I used the experience of the professionals around me and learnt on the job the necessities for building a rigid financial model.
Placement 2: This placement is based in Brno, Czech Republic and has involved more day-to-day duties. I am currently working in Fixed Assets and have been learning SAP as a system. So far I have dealt with internal transactions, depreciation, capitalisation and inter company transfers.
Skills I use and how I developed them
Qualifications: MA and BSC - the MA in particular enabled me to stand out
Degree class - BSC - 2.1 MA - 65% - These grades are relevant insofar as it was a pre-requisite for applying.
Economics/politics/finance: Very relevant "real world" degrees are very applicable to a number of professions, I cannot underestimate their importance enough.
Transferable skills: analytical, presentation skills, communication, confidence, ability to discuss under pressure have all come in useful.
Extracurricular skills:
I was a STYC (Second and Third Year Contact) at university - this developed certain skills such as responsibilty for others.
Part time work - I managed to balance two part time jobs at once and so developed a high level of organisation skills. The skills learnt in these jobs specifially involved communication and running a team.
What I like most
I like the people, the variety of the work, the pressure, and the changing locations of where I am based. I also like the relaxed culture in the various offices that I work in - for example the accessibility to the CEO. I also like being sponsored to study for the CIMA qualification.
What I like least
The graduate scheme is in its first year and so some processes are not fully in place, though this is getting better, so it can be difficult to secure specific soft skills training.
Next steps...
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