First Year Summer Intern Review

Internship was very enjoyable, there was a lot of variety at both placements in terms of the work that I could do. I was given a lot of autonomy by both my managers and they gave me more responsibility than I had expected. The charity day and farewell were also very fun.

My colleagues were very kind to me and they were more than happy to offer me help when I didn't know how to do something. The team at my first placement even got me a leaving present even though I had only been with them for four weeks. At my second placement they would invite to come along to their meetings and appointments.

We had a two day induction day before the internship to teach us more about the company and how to make the most of our time. Both my managers were very happy to arrange weekly meetings to go through what I had been doing and offer me feedback and let me choose which direction I wanted to go.

This depended a lot on one's own initiative, I tried to keep myself as busy I felt comfortable with. No one was over my shoulder constantly checking up on me, but I wanted to experience as much as I could. If I did not have much assigned, I would ask my colleagues if they had tasks for me to do or if they needed any help doing research.

Initially during my retail placement, I had to complete my mandatory learning before I was allowed to face any customers. However, at my commercial placement I was very involved in the decisions that were made and was trusted to write credit applications and helped to draw up lending facilities.

The skills I developed included how to manage my time and workload. This has been incredibly useful for planning my academic schedule. Learning how to meet with clients and make presentations has helped me to communicate better to my lecturers and has made me more confident presenting in class.

The retail placement had a strong retail and high street feel given the location of the branch in a shopping centre. Everyone was very friendly but also quite professional because they were directly facing customers. At the commercial placement, there was more of an office atmosphere everyone seemed more relaxed and there was more joking that happened between everyone.

I felt the induction day helped set everything up and prepared me well for the internship. We had a charity day between the two placements which allowed the interns to meet up and network together. It help me to share my experiences with the other interns and prepare for my next placement.

We had a timetable for every week that included a list of suggested learning objectives and activities. This helped me have a broad understanding of what each branch did but also allowed me to see in depth the technical aspects of the different roles. Every Wednesday there would also be a Lunch and Learn lecture that would be given by people from different departments in HSBC, we learnt about the history of HSBC's involvement in global trade and receivables finance as well as the general economy.

We were thoroughly informed about the next steps after the internship and what the penultimate year internships would include as well as the graduate roles. HR were happy to give most people offers for penultimate year internships and graduate jobs, if they performed well on the internship and received good feedback from their managers.

We had organised a charity raffle and drinks evening in Canary Wharf. There was also opportunity to go out after the charity and farewell days, since all the interns were present. The graduate committee had also organised a sports day at the HSBC sports grounds, where we had a barbecue and party in the evening.

I lived in London so it was rather expensive.

London's nightlife is amazing, lots of opportunity to go out with colleagues and other interns.

There were a few charity events that were organised for all employees that we could get involved in, such as a charity bike ride from London to Brussels.