Operational Management Graduate Programme 2018 - UK

About Fidelity International

Fidelity International provides world class investment solutions and retirement expertise to institutions, individuals and their advisers - to help our clients build better futures for themselves and generations to come. As a private company we think generationally and invest for the long term. Helping clients to save for retirement and other long term investing objectives has been at the core of our business for nearly 50 years.

Operational Management

Fidelity International Operations are on the front line of our external services and ensure the smooth running and delivery of the business.

What do we do?

Distribution Operations is a global enterprise comprising myriad functions that support the success of the business, including Project Management, Business Analysis, Brokerage and Process Automation to name but a few.

Client Services / Customer Relations

Client Services play a critical part in first line customer care. They resolve a wide and complex variety of enquiries via secure messages, letters, phone calls and social media posts.

Retail Pensions

Based in Kingswood and India, the Retail Pensions team are responsible for the administration of the Fidelity Retail Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) from an operational perspective. The team handles transfers in/out, annuities, trivial commutations, divorces, deaths and corporate actions.

Pensions Operations

Pension Operations aims to deliver customer service excellence to Fidelity's Institutional and Workplace Investing (WI) customers. Each touch point during the customer's journey is important; from the transitioning of a pension scheme through to the guidance we provide to members at retirement.

Operational Development

This department project manages Retail Operations, Pension Operations, Client Services and Shared Services in the UK Ireland and India. This includes managing activities such as gathering business requirements, creating / re-engineering processes and procedures, delivering training, completing business contingency planning, introducing operational controls, providing questions and answers for the customer facing teams.

Meet the team

It’s important to us that every single one of our 7000 employees has a great experience at Fidelity. Here’s what some of the operational management team think of life here.

"You will lead interesting projects to help deliver change and process improvement to the business. You will be the point of contact for key stakeholders, organising working groups, chairing meetings and progressing actions. You will oversee this process throughout from implementation to delivery."

Eimear - Operational Management Graduate (University of Aberdeen - History and International Relations)

“The culture at Fidelity is fantastic and my colleagues are a pleasure to work with. This is one of the most rewarding aspects of the role, working with colleagues who have the same ethos”

Stephen Craig - Operational Management Graduate (University of Birmingham - Policy, Politics and Economics)

What will I be doing?

During this two-and-a-half year programme you will undergo five six-month rotations, starting in client services to understand the foundations of Fidelity, followed by rotations in both a technical area and a change or project management role. Once you have developed this core knowledge and exposure, you will then have the opportunity to explore areas of interest or specialism as you move in to your final year, all with the aim of producing the best operational leaders of the future.

Client Services

In addition to playing a large part in first line customer care, your rotation will also involve a project to look at ways to improve processes and procedures to increase efficiencies and customer satisfaction.

Operations

Operations are responsible for supporting the business in a variety of ways. You could potentially have rotations within Fund Data Management, Retirement Benefits Team – Pensions, Re-Registrations and Transfers – Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP), Workplace Investing (WI), Personal Investing (PI), Brokerage or the Anti-Money Laundering team.

Operation Architecture Group (OAG)

The role of OAG is to support Fidelity International’s global operational teams in improving the efficiency and quality of their processes. This is achieved through detailed process analysis, operational reviews and the implementation of various agile process management solutions.

Process Re-engineering

This team shapes and directs how operational teams work to improve their processes to make them more efficient, eliminate waste, mitigate risk or improve the customer journey. We will provide you with full training and exposure to the Lean and Six Sigma tools we use. You will then have the chance to utilise these skills in re-engineering an end to end process during the rotation.

Project Management

Our Business Analysis Team engage in all activities through a project/change life cycle with particular focus on operational requirement gathering, as well as the production of Business Requirement Documents (BRD) for technology led projects and creating supporting business cases. Fidelity adopts an agile approach to its project management and during your rotation you will immerse yourself in these ways of working.

What we look for

You need to be ambitious, enthusiastic and driven. We want someone who is unafraid to challenge the status quo, yet someone who can disrupt appropriately. We want innovative thinking but critically, people who can complement this skill with delivery. You need to be both resilient and tenacious in order to overcome any obstacles in your way.

Continuous Improvement

You will be highly driven with intellectual curiosity, ambition and an absolute commitment to serving the best interests of our clients. You’ll have the analytical skills to understand product performance and ideas to develop processes and procedures with a kaizen mentality.

Build Networks

So much of what we do involves people, relationship building is therefore key as you move through the business. We look for people who are able to work comfortably on their own but also work collaboratively with others through a variety of communications tools, time-zones and cultures.

Customer Focused

Most important of all you must be customer focused. Fidelity International expects customer centricity to be in the DNA of all its employees.

2:1 or above

You will have a minimum of three C’s at A level or equivalent and have obtained or be on track for at least a 2:1 degree (or equivalent).

Learning and development

Unlike other firms that hire on a volume basis, we take on a select number of graduates. As a result, you will be highly valued here with a high level of exposure to seniority; so your development is heavily invested in from day one and throughout your programme. You will also have the value of a current graduate on programme to be your buddy through the programme.

Qualifications

We invest a lot in our graduates, we will support you as you work towards relevant professional qualifications. In your induction you will complete the Investment Operations Certificate (IOC) and within your first year, you will complete the Investment Management Certificate (IMC) 1 & 2. In your second year, you will have the opportunity to study towards a further professional qualification dependent upon your chosen development pathway.

Salary and Benefits

We invest a lot of time and resource into our graduates, ensuring you receive a really strong remuneration package including salary and lifestyle benefits. You will receive a starting annual salary of £32,000 in addition to a £6,000 welcome bonus. Your salary is reviewed annually and you are also eligible for the discretionary, annual performance related bonus in addition to our pension plan, life assurance, private healthcare and 23 days’ annual leave entitlement.

Application process

We like candidates with multiple skillsets, which is why the recruitment process will look to have assessments and questions that will aim to highlight your work ethic, personality and potential.

Online application

We value the different ways that people think. Don’t tell us what you think we want to hear - it’s not what you choose to write about that matters but how you articulate your thoughts. We will be looking for you to provide your answers via previous examples from academia, employment, voluntary work or societies you may have been involved with. You don’t have to do this all in one go – you can save and log in as many times as you want with your username and password.

You will need to:
- answer three questions to support your application
- provide an up-to-date CV

Online testing

Our online inductive reasoning test is focused on logical thinking and how candidates can work flexibly with unfamiliar information to find solutions to problems.

Phone interview

If your application is successful, we will ask you to complete a motivation-based telephone interview, lasting approximately 30 minutes. We’ll ask you why Operational Management within Fidelity International appeals to you, as well as learning more about your background and skills, and how you use these day-to-day.

Face to face interview

We are a little bit different to other businesses. We want to meet you and learn more about you before inviting you to an assessment day. This stage would be an opportunity to come into our offices, meet a Fidelity representative face-to-face and learn more about the business. Your interview would be an hour long, continuing on from the phone interview by focusing on what you can bring to the role through competency and strengths-based questions.

Assessment centre

During the assessment, you will be involved in a combination of a group exercise, an interview and an analysis exercise.

Offer

Stand out at the assessment centre and we’ll offer you a place on our graduate programme starting in September 2018. You’ll have two weeks from the day you receive your offer to make a decision. We will assign you a current graduate as a buddy to help with your decision making. This person will continue to be on hand to support you throughout your early career at Fidelity.