Lovewell Blake trainee reflects on first few months

With their new 2020 trainee intake applications due to open soon, Lovewell Blake asked recent trainee, Rebecca, to tell us about her first few months at Lovewell Blake, read on for a unique insight.

“Before I first joined Lovewell Blake, I spent a lot of time thinking about what working as a trainee would be like.

I had previously completed some work experience in the Corporate Services Group, which led me into this department for employment. Comparing with other trainees, experiences can vary between departments, however, they tend to follow the same structure.

In my first week, I mainly completed lots of training, along with ensuring I was aware of all procedures. I thought that this would be all I covered in my first week, and I wouldn’t be completing any accounts work until I had at least started at Kaplan (my study centre), where I would be taught the basics of accounting. However, I was happy to discover that by the end of the week I had already been on a stock take at a client’s. I was initially surprised that I was able to assist on this, being so new, but everyone seemed so encouraging, which made me nothing but enthusiastic and excited to start.

I was looking forward to the following week, as I got to meet all of the other trainees that had started at the firm with me. We spent the week completing an introduction to bookkeeping course, I was more than happy to do this as I was going to be starting advanced bookkeeping in the following weeks and I had no idea how do anything to do with bookkeeping when I joined.

Over the next few weeks, I was surprised about how much I learnt from everyone, and how quickly I put all of the skills into practice. I visited clients, and was completing tasks such as printing accounts and assisting wherever possible.

Whenever I have empty days in the work planner (how we allocate work), I tend to spend my time completing small tasks for managers and seniors. I find these days useful, because I am learning how to complete multiple tasks every day. I write down how to do them as I go, and using these instructions I find they quickly become easier, and I have started to understand how to complete them without using the notes as much.

In my first few months, I wasn’t only given formal tasks like those mentioned above, but also those with a more informal nature. For example, I was asked to organise a social event for my department. I was given assistance in order to do this, however I was given most of the responsibility which at first made me a little nervous, but I quickly picked up on the lack of formal pressure which allowed me to just look forward to the gathering. This was also the case with the department Christmas dinner. I found these tasks to be rewarding, as I felt I not only had the ability to contribute to the department in a work environment, but I also proved I can organise social events.

When starting at Lovewell Blake I wouldn’t have guessed I would be given these types of responsibilities, and I didn’t expect to be so involved in decisions, so to say I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement.

Overall it’s hard to say what to expect when joining Lovewell Blake exactly, but anticipate challenges, an astonishing amount of learning, and also a community that will always ensure you learn as much as you can, whilst trying out different skills, some being surprising, like Christmas dinner planning.”

For more information on Lovewell Blake, you can visit their website here

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