HR Internship Review

I really enjoyed the more general parts of the internship - the exposure to senior leaders was particularly good, and the graduate team put a lot of effort into the programme. However, not all line managers seemed to be on board with the programme and some seemed to have unreasonable expectations. It really seemed to be a result of poor communication. Additionally the appraisal process did not give room for improvements.

Some colleagues were helpful, but I heard several negative comments about interns in lifts/the office etc. During the intern project, it was extremely difficult to get help from other colleagues in the organisation - most seemed to have the view that we were irrelevant. Additionally my team members were not very supportive - they spoke over me when I tried to contribute in meetings, ignored me when I tried to make conversation within the team, and were generally quite unhelpful. This was even noticed by another colleague in my team who remarked that he found it ridiculous how unsupportive the team were being.

I didn't work directly with my line manager and had very little contact with her. I had far more contact with the colleagues that I was working on projects with. This was particularly problematic when it came to the appraisals - my line manager had no real first hand experience of what I'd been doing and relied on feedback from others. I didn't feel that she was at all supportive and would have been much happier had the lady I'd been working directly for been my line manager. I was particularly disappointed with the mid term review - my line manager postponed it several times, then arrived 20 minutes late, having not read or printed my appraisal document or printed the feedback, and made unhelpful comments that I did not feel were fair or reflective of my work. I can accept that I needed to improve in several areas but I would have preferred more support and guidance on this. I didn't feel like my thoughts and opinions had been listened to at all. The end of term appraisal was then only a week later, meaning I had no time to improve on my performance. Overall I was extremely demotivated by the process. In addition, although I was assigned a team buddy, I found her very unsupportive and didn't even see her/receive contact with her for the final 2 -3 weeks despite emailing her several times.

Initially I was busy enough, but then I became frustrated as I kept being told to wait while ideas were positioned with other people in the organisation. However, my feedback was that I had not been proactive enough. I am usually extremely proactive so in my view there was a real breakdown in communication in terms of what was expected of me/what I was allowed to do. I don't feel I was stretched.

Again, this is difficult to answer as I felt frustrated by a lack of opportunity for responsibility but was then told I should have taken more ownership! I would have appreciated a clearer definition of my responsibilities from the outset. However, we were given a lot of responsibility in the intern project, which I appreciated.

I don't really feel I learned any skills that will help me in my degree studies. Some of the skills, such as learning how to influence and negotiate, may be helpful in a future career.

Some colleagues were very friendly and helpful. I found my particular team weren't very communicative - for example several times when I offered to make tea people didn't even reply to say 'No thank you' - they just continued staring at their screen! Additionally, there was one outburst from a senior leader threatening to sack someone that really put me off. Others were really nice - I think this depends on the department and particular individuals.

For the most part it was very well organised, and the graduate team arranged a good range of activities for us. In some cases we were told about activities at quite short notice, and as my team were not very understanding about this it caused problems.

We received a lot of training initially, with a full week's induction before we started work in the office. Although I found some of the training quite irrelevant and not very helpful, it did show that Barclays Corporate was investing in us. We also had a lot of exposure to senior leaders which was fantastic.

I would consider joining a different department - for example the Head of Marketing really struck me with his enthusiasm and passion, and was very helpful and friendly. However, my particular department was not very appealing.

I made some great friends, the other interns were really fun, and we organised our own activities and nights out.

The cost of living in London is very high. I was fortunate enough to find cheap accommodation with my boyfriend, but food and going out is ridiculously expensive.

There are a lot of great clubs in London, if you can afford them!

We organised a lot of our own activities.