Stefan Belleflame, Digital & Data Analytics trainee
‘The vacancy text for the APG traineeship really appealed to me, especially the fact that you'd get to see all aspects of the company and learn a lot. This, combined with the large data sets APG manages and the social involvement, convinced me to apply.
The entire process was digital because of the pandemic, from assessments to interviews to a personal application video. It all went smoothly, but I would have preferred to see everyone in person. I saw my competition for the first time on match day, the most important day in the selection process. I had three job interviews that day, each 25 minutes and each with a different person from a different background. It was a bit intimidating at first, but I quickly realised they were genuinely interested in me. That gave me confidence.
My background in accountancy and business intelligence fit well with the vacancy. In fact, it turned out to be the ideal combination for this traineeship, which has both a technical and a substantive side. I can apply what I learned in accountancy and finance to the work I do at APG. I also use my knowledge of business intelligence to solve problems associated with data processing and dashboards.
As a trainee, I have the opportunity to hop from one department to the next to carry out assignments. I've learned that every step of the pension process, as trivial as it may seem, contains a world of stories. It’s fascinating.
At the moment I’m working for Asset Servicing, which focuses on corporate actions. Companies we own shares in can pay their dividends in cash or in equities. That option has to be presented to the people who manage the portfolios, which is where Asset Servicing comes in. My job is to analyse past decisions and improve the corporate process. To do that, I’m building a dashboard based on a dataset with all the decisions made to date. It’s a challenging assignment,
but I’m surprised at how fast things are going.
