Since an early age, and to an embarrassingly late one, my answer would have been Fireman Sam. Career-limiting though this might be to announce, it certainly wasn’t

“I want to work for the world’s leading specialist insurance market”

For many people, it seems easy; they’ve known what they’ve wanted to do from the moment they were born. A friend of mine has recently been signed by a premiership rugby union club, and having known him for many years, I can see that his gaze never wavered from his end goal, no matter how abstract or distant it might have seemed at some stages. Obviously, the fact that I taught him everything he knows goes without saying!

Unlike my friend, I have not had the blessing of knowing with such certainty what I wanted to do, and although I spent a lot of time on work experience narrowing down the field, it was the generalist nature of the Lloyd’s Graduate Scheme that really appealed to me.

Not only are you working for a historic corporation, in an award winning building, with lifts that Mr. Wonka would have been proud of, but you have a great range of placements spread before you, that you control. It is the perfect opportunity to gain an overview before deciding upon the career path for you, be it market or corporation.

On top of this, as there are only seven graduates and this is only the second intake, our feedback on the scheme can effect changes to suit us, and our interests.

So I applied, and got through the various tests until I arrived at the assessment centre. Surprisingly, it was actually a really good experience, and unbelievable though this might seem, actually made me want to work for Lloyd’s more.

I had done a few assessment days for financial services organisations to be able to compare with the two days at Lloyd’s. It was streets ahead! They focused on putting us at ease from the off, and it soon became apparent that no attempts to trick us were being made… they just wanted us to perform well and do ourselves justice.

Having said that, the tests were not a walk in the park, and were designed to push us and measure us against the Lloyd’s core competencies. I came away a little brain dead, but happy with my performance. I was on the platform at Kings Cross the same day, on my way back up to Durham, when I got a ‘private number’ calling. I felt as though my stomach had just dropped through the platform floor, but it turned out to be good news.

So, here I am, one of what I have just decided to dub, ‘The Magnificent Seven’ and looking ahead to a varied, challenging and exciting 18 months. I’ll let you know how I get on!