Johannes Respector Indongo

When I first joined Credit Suisse, I was warmly welcomed and made to feel comfortable straight away. Before starting, I mentally set myself goals to achieve with my personal development plan, and my first goal was to tackle my confidence issues, which I considered to be a key weakness of mine and something to help me in my studies as well. Starting my internship was a daunting experience as there were no familiar faces, a strange environment and I certainly was ‘thrown in at the deep end’.

In the first week I met with each program manager giving me an introduction on the program they were running which was interesting to me. I was part of the team which transfers Future Manager Programs from classroom training to e-learning. I wrote a storyline for it and I did research for the Manager Learning Site. I was tasked to produce learning material (create handouts, e.g. flyers), prepare transcripts for the video for resistance to change and keep training records, and I also had to work with Excel to create employees training profiles. Apart from that, I have been supporting all the trainers on daily basis. I was challenged by work, enjoyed learning new things every day and finding out more about Talent and Development programs in the world of finance. Everyone at my department was very approachable. Senior staff like Michael Steiner was very happy to sit down with me and share his experiences with me, which made the whole experience even more interesting.

I came to Credit Suisse with the aim and hope that I would develop my teamwork skills. I have continuously been encouraged to contribute to discussions and make suggestions in meetings which boosted my self-esteem and made me feel like a valued member of the team. The best about my internship was that I was not isolated as an intern, but I did the same work as a trainer. This was a chance of networking and understanding other people’s culture and which helped me to decide my future career direction. Since I’m still relatively new to Human Resources, I don’t fully know what jobs are out there, so getting the chance to experience different roles within Human Resources at Credit Suisse was very interesting. I feel well equipped to make a decision on how to proceed from here onwards.

Now, I feel my confidence skills have improved; overall, working for Credit Suisse has been an engaging experience offering me fantastic learning opportunities and has been a great place to work. I was naïve, insecure and shy, but now I am empowered, experienced, fearless and more matured.

A big thank you to the B360 team!