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If you’re thinking about a career in Finance, then O2 has much to offer you.  There are many different areas that Finance support from more technical areas such as taxation to providing advice and guidance to the Marketing Department. 

Finance is a key area of the business and there are lots of opportunities available at different levels. You may have just graduated and are looking to study for a professional qualification such as CIMA or ACCA, or are fully qualified with lots of experience.   Whatever stage you are at in your career, you’ll find similar people around you who can help and support you.

My name’s Natalie and I work within the Commercial Finance Department supporting the Prepay Marketing team.  I’ve been working in this team for around a year and a half.  There are elements of the role which are routine, but a lot of my tasks are ad hoc.  I am required to support Marketing in helping them to bring new tariffs or propositions to market.Following launch of propositions such as Favourite Place which was advertised on TV in May 2007, I am required to analyse the performance of the tariff in terms of customers on it and how much they used what was offered to them.  There are interesting insights to be found from the data that is collected. Budgeting and forecasting are key areas of the role since Marketing ‘own’ the P&L (profit and loss account) in the business.  Therefore being involved in supporting Marketing is important since they are helping to drive the business forward.

If you are looking for a variety of tasks and being involved in the business then working in Commercial Finance could be the way to go.

      - Natalie

Do you enjoy being interviewed?  I would imagine that most of you would answer ‘no’ to that question - I know that I wouldn’t put it up there with my favourite things to do!

Here at O2 we wanted to make sure that coming for an interview was a great experience rather than something to dread.   So, we’ve started to use a new recruitment method which provides a really positive experience for both you and us.  We chose a technique called Performance Based Selection (PBS) and have, so far, introduced this in our Retail Stores and our Glasgow Contact Centre. 

This is great news for you, as a candidate, because you don’t have to do much preparation in advance of the meeting and you won’t have to role play or take part in any group discussions.  It’s also great for us at O2 as it lets us really understand whether your skills and abilities are a good match for the job you have applied for.  It’s all about selecting the best employee for the role rather than just the most impressive candidate! 

PBS gives you the chance to talk, in detail, about your achievements to date and where you have been successful so far. Your interviewer will be assessing how you would fit into the culture of O2, what you really enjoy doing and how your skills and experience compare to the role you have applied for. You will also have the chance to talk about how you will look after our customers which, of course, is key to working for O2 where we always put the customer at the heart of everything we do.  

We really value our people and need to ensure that you want to join our team as much as we want you to be part of it and we think that PBS really lets us get to know each other. I hope that this has helped with some of the fear factor …… interviews may never be your favourite thing but they don’t have to be like a trip to the dentist either!

 - Heather

Hi!  My name is JP and I’m part of the Internal Communication team.  One of the things I’m asked about by people thinking about joining O2 is development.  What is development at O2? What can the company offer?  It’s a fair enough question - finding out six months down the line that development means absolutely nothing could be a bit of a shock, especially if you were hoping to be running the company two years after joining! 

I’m happy to say that here at O2 we do take development seriously.  If you’re starting as an advisor like I did, there is always something new to learn.  You can spend time going through the courses on our Customer Service Academy, learn how to use a new system or maybe even go observe how another department works.

Of course, there are more than just advisors working in a contact centre and there’s nothing to stop you applying for roles there, too.  O2 are pretty good at recognising internal talent - some of our most senior managers here in Bury started off as advisors, while some of my friends are currently taking part in the Trainee Manager Programme and hope to be Team Managers very soon.

It’s worth saying that there is a lot of competition for new roles when they come up so you’ll have to work hard to stand out from the crowd, however if you’re passionate, skilled and experienced there’s no reason you can’t move upwards after joining.  Just remember me when you do, alright?

- JP