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A placement with impact. A good year for Jack.
We spoke to Jack about his Industrial Placement experience and how it will support his university degree.
I joined Nationwide on an Industrial Placement in September 2023. I study Business and Management at Durham University and joined the Portfolio Planning and Governance team at Nationwide. I'm passionate about driving my professional development and a placement like this is perfect for that.
How will your placement support your degree?
My Industrial Placement experience will be foundational to the final year of my degree. Its already allowed me to gain valuable hands-on experience and the chance to apply concepts which I had only previously learned about at university. Having real world business context will allow me to extract maximum value from the topics in the third year. Giving me greater understanding and improving my work, a huge advantage over my peers. Similarly, the development of my collaboration and presentation skills will be a huge asset when it comes to final year group work. Perhaps most importantly it has given me a range of potential topics for a dissertation, with examples and contacts to help. I feel like I'm pushing for better.
How have you personally developed?
The Industrial Placement scheme has already allowed me to develop hugely as a person. I have become more confident in my communication skills, both verbal and written. I've improved my ability to prioritise tasks and manage workloads. Additionally, I've learned how to build strong working relationships with colleagues and have developed my self-motivation and problem-solving skills. Crucially, I feel this has all come together to give me a solid foundation on which I can continue to build my skills for my future career.
What new knowledge have you gained?
I've been able to develop a huge range of knowledge through my placement, both in terms of breadth and depth. The immersion within the financial services environment has allowed me to develop a strong commercial awareness and understanding of the industry. This is already helping in my day-to-day work and will certainly be a great benefit upon returning to university. At the same time, my work within portfolio management has exposed me to the world of change every day. From multiple perspectives across our portfolio, including project management, planning and governance roles is enabling me to develop a more holistic understanding of the change process.
What new skills have you gained?
I've been able to gain lots of new skills, ranging from Excel and PowerPoint work to portfolio planning. I've also gained highly transferable soft skills, such as problem-solving, communication and collaboration. Presenting is the skill I've been able to develop the most during my placement, which has given me the confidence to both present and discuss work I've completed with senior stakeholders. This is a skill which will serve me well when returning to university and in my future career.
How have your relationships become more rewarding?
Nationwide has been a great place to develop relationships and I've been able to develop a number of new, more rewarding relationships. This has been facilitated by the eagerness of people to help and act as mentors, with a range of people taking time and going out of their way to provide guidance and explain topics in detail to junior colleagues. We're also encouraged to develop close working relationships with all members of our teams, our line managers and our task managers. Having a strong network of mentors is great for equipping you to deal with any situation. as you draw on knowledge and experience across areas.
What Nationwide benefits are most important to you?
The most important benefit has been the commitment to our personal and professional development. We have access to a huge range of both internal and external learning materials. We're also encouraged to engage in self-led learning, with scheduled development time each week. Nationwide really push for you to build a career, not just a job.
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