My best ever day at RBS to date was when we finally closed the restructuring of a UK based pub group. This was the first re-structuring I got involved with and it started back in December when I first joined and we finally closed the deal in July and it was a very exciting day for everyone involved.
The culture at RBS is very down to earth. When I was first looking at joining an investment bank this was one of my greatest fears, that it would be a very challenging, very high-pressured, quite a scary environment to work in, however, when I started on the graduate scheme everyone I met was really lovely, really nice and the same was true when I went into the office. RBS is obviously facing one of the most difficult situations and everyone was still happy to help, keen to sit down with you and show you things and this is something I'd like to do with new graduates and new people coming in to the firm going forward.
Looking forwards, I would like to remain at RBS for a number of years, I think there's a lot of opportunity still for young people within the business. These may be different opportunities to the ones I originally anticipated when I started out over a year ago, however that doesn't make them less important or less useful for my development. I'm really looking forward to taking on more responsibility and maybe even at some point, managing a team of people.
When we first started on the graduate programme we were offered two months training, this was down in Canada Water. For the first couple of weeks we did presentation skills, learning how to present yourself in an appropriate manner when in a business environment. Then we moved onto more specific credit skills and training relevant to your business area. At the end of the two months training I really felt that I'd gained a good knowledge and solid foundation before going into the business. During my time at RBS I've also been lucky enough to participate in the Times Graduate leadership challenge, which involved a team of six competing against other companies and this taught us leadership skills and how to step back from a situation and everything we were taught was put back into a business context and I felt this was a very valuable learning experience and I'm looking forward to continue to doing things like this in the future.
I was attracted to work at RBS for a few reasons: firstly, they're a global brand and I wanted to work somewhere which would give me the opportunity to maybe go and work internationally in the future; secondly, I wanted to start my career in London because working in Financial Services it's such an important centre for the industry and lastly, I wanted to work for a firm which had a reputation for valuing it's staff and would support me throughout my development give me opportunities to continue to expand and develop my career.