Nordea gives us hands-on experience on how technology is transforming finance and banking

Hi and welcome to the Nordea Graduate Programme. Please start by introducing yourselves and telling us where you work in the bank at the moment.

Fredrika: I’ve studied a multidisciplinary master’s programme in Sociotechnical Systems Engineering with an IT systems profile at Uppsala University. My first rotation at Nordea is as an IT Analyst within Sustainable IT. The team works with ESG reporting and reducing CO2e emissions from Nordea’s Technology unit – with the aid of IT and tech.

Axel: My educational background is a mixture of business and IT as I recently graduated from the Business Administration and Information Systems programme at Copenhagen Business School. I’m currently in my first rotation like my fellow tech grads, but as a Business Analyst in Infrastructure Transformation, which is part of the larger Infrastructure Engineering team.

Jonas: After graduating with a bachelor’s degree, I decided to study Business Administration and Digital Business (former e-business) at CBS as well. I’m currently in my first rotation as a business analyst in Transaction Banking, where I conduct business analyses in areas such as Open Banking and Embedded Finance. 

Why did you apply to the Nordea Graduate Programme? 

The Nordea Graduate Programme caught our attention as it offered three factors that we valued highly. Firstly, the possibility to work within technology in a setting that affects society and people, where we believe it’s possible to contribute to a better future. Secondly, the community of graduates from different disciplines but also the opportunity to try different things in our rotations that enable us to meet a variety of new people and to be curious. Finally, as Nordea prioritises being at the forefront of technological innovation in the financial sector, it’s a great place to get hands-on experience in how technology is transforming finance and banking, which is particularly relevant for us technology graduates.

You recently attended the Nordea Graduate Summit –  tell us more about that.

The summit is a three-day event at which all graduates from all locations meet up in Helsinki, Finland. The purpose of the summit is to enable getting to know Nordea and our customers better and, of course, to get to know each other. The first two days of the summit consisted of meeting and listening to colleagues from across Nordea sharing their work and insights. Some of the topics presented were Nordea’s sustainability work, the brand journey, investor relations and how Nordea works together with startups. We also got to meet one of Nordea’s corporate customers.

Networking and connecting with each other

One of the highlights of the summit was the networking activities. Before the summit, we’d all met virtually across countries, but being together in real life made it so much easier to get to know everyone. Not only did we have social activities during the official summit days, we also arranged activities in the evenings, and some of us even stayed over the weekend to explore Helsinki. Examples of activities included having lunch and dinner together as a big group, grabbing a quick beer or soda after work and exploring tourist sites and saunas in Helsinki over the weekend.  

Training day with Implement 

Lastly, we rounded off the summit by having an insightful training day facilitated by *Implement Consulting Group, during which we learned valuable lessons. The full day was action-packed and fun as we learned more about how to facilitate business meetings and were given tools, inspiration and so much more.

Overall, the summit made us feel more connected with Nordea and our graduate colleagues, and we really enjoyed our days together in Helsinki.

How do you experience Nordea’s working environment?

Everyone you meet is genuinely nice and friendly, and it feels like people really enjoy their work. Having fun at the office is encouraged, and people appreciate if you reach out and want to learn more about what they do. Nordea’s values include collaboration and ownership. This became evident when we joined, as it felt like starting a new class with all the other graduates, but we’ve quickly gained trust and confidence to handle challenging tasks and feel that seniors value and actively seek our insights.

What positive surprises have you come across during your first months? 

A big value-add of the graduate programme is the emphasis on learning and developing. We experience that graduates are encouraged to do rotations in teams, and preferably very different teams, so we can learn as much as possible about different business areas or group functions. There is therefore great flexibility in terms of trying different things, and leaders at Nordea are very appreciative of graduates reaching out and discussing the opportunity of doing a rotation within their teams.

Any last words?

Finally, we would like to round off with three tips to anyone interested in applying to Nordea’s Graduate Programme:

• Try to understand Nordea’s business and purpose.
• Be curious and open to new challenges – enjoy learning and developing!
• Have both the technical and business perspective – this is an aspect we believe is desirable and highly appreciated at Nordea, at least for technology graduates. 

That’s all from us! We hope we were able to give you some insights into what being a technology graduate at Nordea is like. 

* Implement Consulting Group is Nordea Graduate Programme partner in securing high-quality training for our future workforce. 

If you would like to join our programme next recruiting wave starts 15 January 2024.