Name: Emily
Overview:
The HSBC Retail Management graduate scheme involves 4 different placements over the 2 years. As a Retail Management Trainee you are initially placed in one specific region and your placements will be in this same region throughout the scheme. The placements will mainly be branch based.
The scheme so far from a graduate's point of view:
My first week at HSBC was spent at one of HSBC’s residential centres with all the other MT’s (Retail, Commercial and Corporate) on the same intake. This was a fantastic introduction to life at HSBC, it really underlined the breadth of opportunities available and a brilliant opportunity to meet other graduates and form a network of colleagues and friends who are experiencing the same things!
As a retail MT you also benefit from a further 4-week course, mine was in London, where after a week back in branch I was reunited with the other retail MT’s to complete HSBC’s Welcome and Onboarding Academy (or WOAC as it is affectionately known!) . The first role you undertake on the scheme is a Senior Customer Service Officer and the WOAC course prepares you with the knowledge and the skills you will need to be successful in the role. As a Customer Service Officer you are the first point of contact for customers on a daily basis and will learn the fundamentals of how the branch operates dealing will all kinds of customer queries from account opening to mortgages. As someone who admittedly had rarely visited a branch before joining HSBC, the learning curve was steep as I had to quickly learn to deal with a huge range of customer queries. Life in the branch is very fast-paced and hugely varied; every day really is completely different!
I am just coming to the end of this first stage now and thinking about what my next role will be. The Customer Service Officer role has been an invaluable introduction to HSBC however I am now looking forward to moving onto my next placement and the opportunity to take on even more responsibility. The retail scheme is flexible in the options available to you and my next roles could be in operations and back office support, looking after a small portfolio of Premier customers, a role in the regional office, deputy to the branch Manager or even Branch Manager of a small service branch all with the aim of preparing me for my first management role in 18 months time!