Ross

Hi!

Welcome to my first every blog entry. When I heard about this blog idea I thought it would be fun to get involved; then I began to think what exactly was I going to talk about!? I decided that I would use my first attempt to take a little time to introduce myself.

My name is Ross and I have been an HBOS Graduate for almost a year now, joining in September 2006. Before this I studied Software Engineering at university. I joined an area within the company called Group Services which is made up of over 4,500 people. In short, Group Services sit at the core of the HBOS Group and provide invaluable services and support to the rest of HBOS, covering areas such as IT, Procurement, Payment Services, as well as many others.

Since joining I have had the pleasure of working within 3 very different teams. I first joined the Group Technology Communications team, which was a great place to get a helicopter view of what goes on across Group Technology and Group Services. Before I confuse you, let me explain that Group Technology is part of Group Services, and as you can probably guess from the name their job centres around the technology for the bank. Coming from a software background I didn't expect to be placed in such a team, but quickly realised that you can learn a lot very quickly from working in a team that is responsible for the communications strategy for over 1,500 people!

Five months later I stayed in Group Technology but moved into a team called Service Continuity. This team where responsible for ensuring IT recoverability for the majority of the business in the event of a disaster. I really enjoyed this placement as I was back in a technological environment, and it was sort of exciting making and testing plans for when a disaster might strike!

Currently I'm now in my third placement in a completely different area, working in a Business Change team in the Payments arena. The team is very project management oriented, and I was keen to learn more about the payments industry and how large scale projects are run, and this placement gave me the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

That was just a very brief overview of what I've been up to in my short time with HBOS. However in this very short space of time I have been given the opportunity to move around and experience three different areas. I really like this aspect of the graduate programme as it allows you to quickly build up you knowledge of the company, and your contacts, which are both key in this business. You are also given real responsibility from day 1, the graduates are very highly thought of within Group services and this is reflected in the type of work you get involved in.

In future blogs I'll give you examples of the type of work I'm currently involved in, and have been involved in the past. However it is Friday afternoon and the weekend has arrived! I hope my first blog hasn't been too taxing on you, and I look forward to writing another blog for you very soon.

Thanks for reading,

Ross