Exam Result

Following on from my First Impressions of Pensions post, I mentioned that I was to sit my first IOC examination; Introduction to Securities and Investments in the first week of December.   I am now delighted to be able to say that I passed the exam on Thursday and achieved a ‘Pass with Merit’ result.

I found the course content very interesting and also very relevant to the jobs that I have done over the past fifteen months here at Rathbones.

As of this week, the second IOC exam material; UK Financial Regulation has been added to my online study page and I plan to start this right away in order to build on the material from the first exam.

In addition to this news, we had our office Christmas Party on Friday at the Marriott Hotel which turned out to be a fantastic night and also a great way to meet new people in the company. Although, I still find it hard to believe that it has been a year since the last office Christmas party!!

My Role on Pensions

One month on and I’m continuously learning new things about pensions, quite simply because there are so many pension plans and insurance schemes out there. 

The team that I have been assigned to is the RPAS admin support team. My current role on the team is to update client records with their information and pension plans, which with the more experience I gain, the more pension plans I will become familiar with and understand. 

I am also sending out letter of authority forms to companies in order for us to request information on a client’s pension that is held with an external provider. This involves a lot of communication via telephone to companies in order for me organise and keep track of the authority letters sent out and the information that we are waiting on.

Other tasks that I have taken responsibility of include monitoring and obtaining commission statements from other companies, and also preparing client annual review packs and sending them directly to the client.

First Impressions of Pensions

From today it has been a month since I started working on RPAS – Rathbone Pension & Advisory Services Limited. I didn’t quite know what to expect with it being a different line of business to Rathbone Investment Management, however I have found it very refreshing and interesting to experience the pension industry.

So far I am really enjoying this new challenge and the team have been very welcoming and helpful in order for me to settle in quickly. I have also been involved in two video conference meetings between our London and Liverpool RPAS office already, which is a strange experience compared to my previous team meetings which had been held in a room with everyone physically present.

On a final note, I have arranged to take my first IOC examination – Introduction to Securities and Investments in the first week of December. With the sole focus on the IOC qualification I am now studying this material a lot more and I am finding the content very interesting and relevant to the job I have done on a daily basis for the past year.

Update: 1 year on

It was one year yesterday that I joined Rathbones officially and started working on the dividends team. Since then I have learnt a huge deal in regards to businesses and investment management and I have accomplished several goals already. All in all, the year has flown by which can only be a good thing and I think the variety of what the apprenticeship offers has certainly helped towards this.

In addition to this week being the year anniversary since I joined, it was also my official end date for the NVQ on the 30^th September. I am very pleased to say that I have submitted the complete portfolio to the exam board for marking and I hope to be given the all clear from the exam board’s verifier. From now I will devote my study time solely to the CISI IOC examinations in order to achieve my goal of completing the three examinations to be certified within the investment industry.

Finally, as well as the above occurring within this week – it is also my last week on the transfers department. I will take a huge deal of skills and knowledge from my time on transfers and I only have good things to say about the team and how easy they made it to settle in.

From Monday 6^th October I will officially work on the Rathbones Advisory Pensions and Services team where I will gain an insight in to the growing pension services industry.  My next post will be an update on my first impressions of pensions – bye for now!

Benefits of the apprenticeship route

The apprenticeship route is a fantastic way to gain the invaluable experience that virtually every employer is asking for. I am delighted with my decision to opt for this apprenticeship as it has developed so many skills and characteristics that I personally do not think I would have gained through the university route.

With the opportunity to study for valuable qualifications and gain experience at the same time, it is a more attractive proposition to an employer than that of someone who only has a qualification when applying for a job.

My advice would be that if you are serious about a career working within a particular industry and there are apprenticeships available, then this route is the most beneficial for your prospects.

Dealing Overview

Yesterday I was given an overview of the Dealing department at Rathbones as part of my education from the apprenticeship. I saw this as a great opportunity to broaden my knowledge about what our company does and how it works, and to also decide on where I would like to end up further down the years.

Needless to say, the dealing role is a pressured, exciting and important role in our business as it epitomises much of what we do at Rathbones i.e. buying and selling shares for our clients as per the fund manager’s request. I was also impressed at the volume of analytical data that is used for certain trades on the dealing desk, and this I believe makes the job all the more interesting (and pressured!)

It is perhaps too soon to say that this is where I would like to be in the investment industry, but I certainly found this role to be very interesting and one I would most definitely consider aiming towards achieving.  

Transfers Update

Checking the date of my last post, I cant believe that nearly two months has passed! I have found it hard to find the time to post as our team has been very busy over the past month, but here is a brief update about my time on transfers: 

It is now two months in to my new placement and I am feeling more settled not only in the team, but also with the workload that I have. At first, I definitely felt overwhelmed with the constant processing that is required within the transfers department which meant that the new acquisition project of Tilney Investment Management from Deutsche Bank was high on my mind. Going in to this, our team has also had to deal with a colleague leaving which meant that our workload was already inevitably going to increase.

However, currently in the middle of this project I have managed to effectively carry out my role and also deal with the effect from the project. This I believe, has improved many skills of mine such as organisation, accuracy, decision making and several more and the experience from this will go a long way for me.

As I said, just a short post from me as I am still incredibly busy but hopefully I will have more time to post soon!

First Impressions of Transfers & CISI: IOC

I am now nearing the end of my first week on the Transfers In department. So far I have been introduced to the team, which is slightly larger than the last team I was on (Dividends) but they are all really friendly and I feel that I should settle in fairly quickly.

Over the past week I have been trained on the basic processing role for the Transfers In team, dealing with inputting trades on to our system, transferring ISA accounts and also dealing with stock deposit forms. It has been fairly hectic learning this role in such a short space of time but I feel it will put me in good stead for the duration of my placement.

I wont be trained on other aspects of the Transfers In team until May/June as I am on holiday from next Wednesday for two weeks, but I suppose this will be a good test of what I can remember in regards to the processing role!

In addition to joining a new team, I received the IOC – Introduction to Securities & Investments revision material from CISI last week as well as my online revision login details. So far I have read the first chapter of the book and I am astonished at how interesting it really is. I have found myself being able to link some of the technical explanations in the book to real life experiences I have had on the Dividends team, which I believe will help to reinforce my knowledge for when I sit the exam.

I am now looking forward to reading the rest of the book in order to learn more about the industry on a technical level and hopefully gain enough knowledge to pass the first exam!

Six months of Dividends

From the time of writing this, I have less than three weeks remaining on the Dividends team which has been my first real experience of a workplace. Looking back, it has been a lot different to what I had imagined it to be prior to this apprenticeship.

Quite simply, there is not a lot that your high school, or even college can do to fully prepare you for the demands of working within a team. It is because of this I am glad that I have gained this invaluable experience through the apprenticeship route, where I have been given many opportunities to develop whilst being eased into a completely different lifestyle.

Originally, my knowledge of the industry was very limited, but since being here I now have a much broader outlook on what Rathbones offers to their clients within the investment industry. However, with the company subdivided up into smaller, specific organisations such as RIM, RUTM and RPAS, there is still so much more to learn about what we offer and I believe this has given me a good first hand experience of a large structure within an organisation.

Not only have I developed my knowledge within the industry, but I have also developed key skills as an employee during my time on dividends. Whilst I may have been hesitant in putting myself forward for tasks when I had first started, I now use my initiative to create a workload for myself instead of relying on others to delegate their workload to me.

The next step for me now is to prepare myself for a completely different challenge on the Transfers team, where hopefully some of the knowledge that I have picked up on Dividends will come in handy.

February Update

Just a quick update on how things are going as there is nothing too significant to write about since my last post.

As my time on Dividends is drawing to a close, I am feeling more comfortable with the advanced tasks of my role – such as dealing with reinvested dividends, communicating queries to other teams and investment firms, and also reconciling dividends for large amounts. I am sure I am still yet to learn more in the month and a half that I have left and that I look forward to, but I am very pleased with what I have learnt so far and I feel that these skills will be a great asset to me for the future, especially when I study for my IOC qualifications.

In terms of my current education, the NVQ qualifications that we apprentices are studying for are going very well and a finishing date is certainly not far off for the portfolio. This is also the case for the NVQ Technical Certificate examinations, which have gone as well as they could possibly have and I am very pleased with the results.

Once these are complete I can focus on the IOC qualifications, which will be a fresh challenge and one that I am certainly looking forward to as it will help me gain a solid, technical understanding of the investment industry.

Anyway, that’s all from this update; stay tuned for the next one!

Appraisal Week

I am now nearing the end of my fourth month at Rathbones, and have just over two months left on the Dividends team before I move to the Transfers department for six months. Even though I am looking forward to learning more about the industry and how different teams in Rathbones work, a big part of me would quite happily stay on this team as a permanent member, which is a credit to the people on the team more than anything.

For the last two weeks our team has had appraisals, which is a performance review meeting with your manager that looks at ways to motivate you and to improve performance. Everyone in my team has now completed their appraisals with our manager, except for me…

Well, kind of.

Instead, I have had a three month probation review, which in effect is like a monthly appraisal for the first three months to check how you are doing and also to see if you suit the job to the correct level.

Thankfully, everything went as well as I could have hoped for and I have now completed all three of my probation reviews with my manager on Dividends.

Christmas Festivities

At the end of November we had the dividends team meal at the Hannover Social Club which was a good way to mix and socialise with my colleagues on a personal level as well as a professional one. After the meal, most of our department went to the Rathbones Christmas drinks party on the top floor of the Maritime Museum which is a great venue. It was a really good way to meet people that I would never normally speak to in my company and above all I had a really good night.

I also attended the CISI Christmas drinks reception with a group of people from my company on the 12^th December – I could get used to these nights out! I met people from competitors in our industry who were really friendly and were keen to hear more about the apprenticeship scheme I am currently on at Rathbones.

Over the Christmas period I chose to work most of the month, only taking the 27^th off in my annual leave (and of course public holidays such as Christmas day and New Years day). Even though I am accustomed to long holidays, having only been in full time education just over six months ago, I actually enjoyed this month. The mood in the office was good and there were plenty of social events taking place so I’m glad that I experienced it (and also I’ve been able to carry four days of holiday that I didn’t use over to this year!)