So my time had come and my first day at Lloyd’s was upon me. There was an apprehensive feeling of the unknown in the air, not knowing if I’d get on well with my team, enjoy the work or even fit in with the culture at Lloyd’s…luckily all these ideas were quashed in my first week!

As I walked up to one of the most unusual buildings in the City, I recognised a guy from my assessment centre, David, glad to see he also made it onto the Lloyd’s graduate scheme.

When we met up with the other graduates it reminded me of the first day at university, little ice breakers where everyone is asking question after question so they can get to know each other.

Happy to report Lloyd’s have recruited a great bunch of people on the scheme, some interesting characters I have to say, so I’m looking forward to getting to know them even better.

My first week can be summed up in a couple words…very intense!

From getting presentations about all the different areas within Lloyd’s and identifying areas for self development, to doing my bit for the local community by doing some gardening down in east London, it did make for a very diverse first week.

The gardening was part of Lloyd’s commitment to helping out local communities, specifically St Matthias Community Centre and Old Church, and was with all the graduates and our respective buddies.

This gave me a chance to show off my gardening prowess and to build up relationships with the graduates and more people from Lloyd’s in an informal environment. 

In my first week I didn’t really have an evening to myself, there was a dinner organised with our mentors—honestly the best steak I’ve had in a long time, a BBQ on a roof terrace—a chance for us to meet some of our new found colleagues, and many impromptu trips to the pub…all in all made for a very long week.

By the weekend I had no energy left to remotely do anything of worth.

Looking back on my first week, I’ve learned a lot about how Lloyd’s operates and have become totally immersed in the culture and I’m glad to say I’ve made a lot of new friends, both from the graduate scheme and from Lloyd’s.