This week we are delighted to be joined by Elliot Wright, a year 12 student from Hardenhuish school who has chosen to complete his week of work experience with the Hartsfield team. We asked Elliott about his preconceptions of the industry and why he wants to work within financial services.
Why financial services?
People, especially of my age group, tend to have little insight into the inner workings of the financial services sector; whilst almost everyone will have used banking, many people will have little to no experience with financial planning and investment. Financial services can be seen as complicated and inaccessible, in part due to the usage of technical language (which films often use in abundance to project authenticity), and this can lead people to ignore all the potential benefits that can come with fully understanding where you or your business’s money is going, and how you can plan a financially secure future. Work experience at Hartsfield will offer invaluable insight into one of the country’s largest industries, which, as previously stated, is a particularly important industry to understand.
Role diversity within the industry
I am currently studying Economics, Maths and History A-Levels at Hardenhuish Sixth Form, which I hope to use to study economics in more depth at university. Work experience in the financial services sector will be valuable for both my academic study and my working life after that, as I look forward to seeing the theory and principles I’ve studied in Economics and, previously, Business Studies applied in a real-world context. Financial services are also the area I hope to work in post-university, so gaining experience in a firm like Hartsfield will be incredibly useful, especially as I spend time with different departments and gain an understanding of the many roles in the industry. I chose Hartsfield specifically to gain this experience since their wide range of services will hopefully give me an insight into many different careers, such as financial planning, paraplanning, and investment management, as well as other roles in departments such as marketing and administration. Furthermore, Hartsfield is a regional company based in the Southwest, which means I will be able to see how the industry operates specifically in the area I live in.
Learning about the industry
I expect to learn a lot about the wide variety of roles in the industry, the tendency often being to lump all the jobs in an industry together, like people often do by simplifying many jobs in the legal and medical sectors down to ‘lawyers’ and ‘doctors’. We have touched very little on the financial services sector in economics, despite it being such an important component of the UK economy, and I find most depictions in film or TV pretty implausible, even without having worked in the sector, so I am a little unsure as to what I should expect. However, based on the large variety of roles I’ll be shadowing, people I’ll be meeting and tasks I’ll be completing, my work experience at Hartsfield promises to be both informative and enjoyable.