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.
