Barclays Spring Week Review

I thoroughly enjoyed the insight as it gave me a broad understanding of the various areas within the FO of an investment bank. As well as the learning side, there was ample interactive sessions through banking related case studies to a trading game.

I felt extremely valued by Barclays during my time on the program. This was only shown through financial reimbursement but also the willingness by all members of the bank, no matter their title, to interactive and take time to speak to us.

The support system put in place by Barclays really allows you to make the most of the spring program. Each person is assigned a buddy within in the area you apply for. Your assigned buddy will contact you before the spring week begins and you can ask for advice throughout the spring week.

The program helped me to develop softer skills such as communication, teamwork & presentation. It also gave me more technical knowledge, with discussions of derivatives, practice of DCF models and accounting metrics. The softer skills will be valuable when moving throughout any career. For my degree a lot of the technical information is a recap but useful none the less.

The Insight was incredibly well structured. The interactive Barclays app provided us with an hour by hour breakdown of each day. This was sent to us in good time before the program to allow us to prepare.

The general atmosphere among the other Front Office Candidates was great. Everyone was friendly and fun to work with in group projects. In addition, people were keen to be involved and the sessions were very interactive. Members of the bank were welcoming and I felt like they wanted us to be there.

The company invested in many skill session for us as previously mentioned. It was clear that Barclays had a clear aim to spend time developing are skill set and showing they were the right choice to pursue a future career with.

It is always difficult to judge a full-time role based off short shadowing sessions and overviews of departments. However, Barclays tried to give us a flavour of what it is like to work for them through the type of work they do but also the way they do it.

The company culture is clear at Barclays. It is a strong message of 'Doing Business in the Right Way.' The culture and the work environment was clearly present when speaking to all employees as they were friendly and always happy to help.

The spring week gave me a valuable insight into what I want to pursue as a future career through a discussion of the various work environment in each department.

Travel expenses to and from London are paid. We are also given £250.

We had a formal networking session on Wednesday evening at the main Barclays building. Also all employees I spoke to were more then happy to meet later in the week over a coffee for a more informal networking opportunity.

As mentioned previously they are great. What made them so good was the willingness of the Barclays employees to spend time with you. I felt like they really wanted to be there.

This was less focused on as the hours are long. However, there are opportunities to socialise outside of work.

Yes. This is a fantastic opportunity.