Dania's finance placement at NPL

This is a guest post from Dania Qureshi who is studying BSc Accounting and Finance (Year in Business) and undertaking a finance placement at the NPL in London. Dania showed real resilience in securing this placement - her initial placement offer from another company was retracted when the intern programme was cancelled due to Covid, but she did not give up, and persisted to secure herself another placement offer.

As the UK's National Measurement Institute, NPL develops and maintains the national primary measurement standards. From new antibiotics to tackle resistance and more effective cancer treatments to unhackable quantum communications and superfast 5G, technological advances must be built on a foundation of reliable measurement to succeed. 

 My placement is centred around Financial Planning and Analysis, which means that I help my team with creating various weekly and monthly reports, which are useful for NPL’s budgeting and forecasting processes. As well as this, I am responsible for creating and carrying forward different financial models, which go towards analysing growth at a department/project level. Currently, I’m halfway through my 15-month placement, and I can honestly say I did not expect to be given this much responsibility!

The application process for NPL was all virtual as I applied in June where Covid-19 meant we were all in lockdown. I thought it would be challenging to work from home, as I wouldn’t know anyone, but it’s been a great experience because my team are so attentive, and we have regular catch-up sessions over Teams. My team and I even met up in Bushy Park for Ice cream when I first started which was really nice (we were socially distanced of course)

I’m really glad I decided to continue applying for Placements despite not being very lucky in the beginning. As I applied to more, my CV and cover letter writing technique improved massively and I became more confident when speaking during interviews. I regularly made use of the fantastic careers advice team who helped me with my competencies, and I also frequently called Karen and Katharine from the YIB team who helped motivate me and gave me so much useful advice! This placement has not only given me the technical skills I will need to work in Finance in the future, but also improved soft skills such as time management, communication, and teamwork.

To finish off this blog entry, I’d like to give you a few tips for the application process. Make sure your competencies cover the core values of the company e.g. If a value is ‘cooperation’ the interviewer may ask you to describe a time where you worked well in a team.

• Make sure you ask someone from the careers service to look over your competencies and give you advice! This one really helped me.
•  Look out for the Placement Bulletin that is sent out as that’s how I knew to apply to this placement!
• Look over your CV (every point) before interviews, as they will most likely target experiences and have you elaborate on them
• Don’t worry/give up if you haven’t got a Placement yet, I got mine at the end of June and began in July!
• Relax! I know it’s way easier said than done, but think of your interview as a chat rather than an interrogation. Don’t be pressured to lie or exaggerate experiences to sound more professional. E.g. when I was interviewed for NPL, I got asked what my favourite book was and instead of saying the Financial Times or anything I wouldn’t know about, I just said Harry Potter 😊