Name: Thomas Sandbergen
Track: Investments
Studied: Economics and Business, Financial Economics
Trainee year: 2019
My first touchpoint with NN as an employer was during an inhouse day back in March 2019. In my opinion, these days are the best opportunity to get to know a firm, its culture, the people and, of course, the ins and outs of the traineeship.
As I was interested in several tracks, I collected some more information about the specific tracks by getting in touch with the graduate recruiter. After a call, I decided to apply for the inhouse day for the Finance and Investments tracks. I was glad to hear I was invited to this day, the first step to my traineeship.
The big day
As the event started, we already learned a bit about both industry-specific subjects such as life and non-life insurances and asset management, and company-specific topics such as the core values “Care, clear, commit” and the several sport and culture events where NN is involved as a main sponsor.
The two track-related presentations we got, showed that NN is taking inhouse days seriously, as they were given by none other than the Head of Group Finance & Reporting, Derk-Jan Stol, and the CCO (Chief Client Officer) of NN Investment Partners, Hester Borrie. After their presentations, they shared some of their insights and career advice with us. The fact that these two people with quite some busy agendas made time for a group of students/recent graduates, was definitely a big plus for NN.
At some point, we started to work on a case. I joined the group for the Investments track. We needed to decide whether we should keep a specific stock in the Sustainable Equities fund, based on actualities and fundamental and technical analysis. It turned out that NN had done what we suggested! The people interested in the Finance track worked on an ethical dilemma regarding fiscal losses. The cases gave a good insight in what you could encounter in your career at NN.
The day ended with some drinks, this was a nice opportunity to get to know some current trainees and to ask them a few questions about how they experience NN’s culture.
The effects of the inhouse day
This inhouse day triggered me to apply for the Investments traineeship for several reasons. I got a good impression of the organization, learned about the core values, discovered what I could be doing during the traineeship and, lastly, I met nice people I can now call my colleagues. To me, everything about the company felt right, which led to my application for the Investments track of the traineeship. As we speak, I am a few months on the job and I must say: I got a very truthful view back then and I can only recommend you to go to as many inhouse days as possible.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at thomas.sandbergen@nnip.com. It really helped me during my orientation/application phase to get in touch with current trainees!
NN Group Traineeships
