Niamh Meade
MBS (Hons) Business Information Systems, 2006
The main reason I decided to join the Zurich Graduate Program was because of the rotation based opportunities it offers graduates. Coming straight from university with a degree in Business Information Systems, I found it difficult to decide exactly what role I wanted to specialise in. Joining the Zurich Graduate Programme allows me to gain exposure to various business areas while trying out various different roles, it was the perfect solution.
I have been working as a Business Analyst on a web portal and Business-to-Business project for the last year. My role involves interacting externally with the Independent Financial Advisor portal providers and liaising internally on a daily basis with the business and IT developers, to ensure all requirements (both IT and business) are consistently met. While I have thoroughly enjoyed it (even though it has been very challenging), I am shortly going to move into an entirely different role and gaining exposure to other business areas and types of projects. The fact that I can rotate amongst various roles within the department will hopefully give me an idea of what specific career path I would like to pursue in the future and it will offer an invaluable experience into gaining exposure to numerous business areas as well as networking with many Zurich employees.
As Zurich is currently undertaking a large number of strategic projects, there are many opportunities and greater responsibilities available to graduates then ever before. Not many graduates are offered the opportunity to be a project manager within their first year of joining a company!
There are endless opportunities and courses available in the department. My Personal Development Manager usually advises me of any upcoming courses, offering me the opportunity to decide how I would like to develop. I have already completed an Advanced Project Management course and I have signed up for 4 Business Analyst modules over the next few months.
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Joe Dowling
European Management and French BBA (hons), 2005
University of Lancaster
I graduated from the University of Lancaster with a 2:1 in European Management and French BBA (hons) in 2005.
I chose to join Zurich because the graduate scheme was well presented, demonstrating that the programme is well established; offering a clear and structured approach to help me meet my professional goals.
The main strength of the graduate programme is that I am able to set myself clear learning objectives, which are reviewed on a regular basis. This has undoubtedly helped me to improve my soft skills such as leadership, problem solving, creativity, negotiation and influencing.
At Zurich, every graduate is assigned a Personal Development Manager; a senior member of staff or manager who is responsible for ensuring that each graduate has everything they need to meet their development needs – whether it be ensuring that they get the training they require or simply ensuring that the project they are working out carries a sufficiently challenging level of responsibility.
Since joining Zurich, I have been given increasingly challenging projects – giving a real sense of progression. I am constantly being challenged with new and bigger projects. This means that work is always interesting, that I always have an appropriate level of responsibility, and that I am always progressing what I learn.
Once I have completed the programme I plan to continue to develop my management skills by taking up more challenging roles with greater responsibility.
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Chris Murphy
BSc (Hons) Business Information Systems, 2005, University College Cork
After gaining a degree in Business Information Systems from University College Cork, I chose to apply to successful multinational financial services companies. I’m very interested in working abroad in the future and Zurich has a presence in many of the countries I’m interested in.
I think the Graduate Programme is excellent and really encourages individuals to maximise their potential. Many companies promise continual training, but Zurich really delivers. All of the courses I’ve attended have been extremely useful in helping us to become more effective and assertive members of our teams.
Personally I find the job rotation aspect of the programme to be extremely beneficial. Although it takes a lot more effort from the graduates, the opportunities it offers in terms of exposure to the business, networking and in the development of different skills is priceless.
While working on one of my small projects, I discovered there were far greater requirements than had been previously anticipated. I have since watched this project grow and it has been extremely rewarding to take this project from the initial simple requirement to a full-blown development project, whilst still being allowed to manage all aspects. I don’t think graduates would be given opportunities like this in many other companies.
Once the programme is over, I would be happy to become a mentor to new graduates on the programme, as I strongly believe in it. Ultimately I would like to spend some time working in some of our developing markets in south east Asia or Australia.
