FRC Sales & Trading Review

My internship (2 months) is in FRC (FX, Rates and credit) sales & trading. It is a well structured internship, starting with some networking and training (business line and personal development) with mini-rotations that give you a lot of exposure to many different desks. You also have guest speaker series which you attend with all interns across the divisions, providing chance to spend some time with people other than your division.

Everyone is willing to answer questions interns have and friendly to help out things we don't understand. The tasks I got were designed to enhance my knowledge of products as well as allowing to network with people across the FRC trading floor. I felt that I was valued and felt well guided throughout the whole rotation either by business line or by HR.

Of course there are certain things that I should tackle myself - if it is something that I can easily find out, I don't refer it to my line manager. But if there is something that I genuinely need advice or guidance, I always asked and received full support. Not only line manager but whole team would find some spare time to answer any questions I had with regard their work, markets, etc.

I am fairly busy, never have nothing to do and just wondering about. If I manage to finish projects/tasks a little bit earlier, I would go around to other desks and learn about different products and how that desks work. Interns also have trading games, market wrap up, and other talks given by the management, so the schedule is full and kept very busy.

I was given a fairly good amount of work to do, and nothing that would be completely meaningless to the business line. It is never too challenging, but enough challenges to push me to think further and go beyond my comfort zones. For example, I have completed a project on EM country, and I had to speak to numerous desks to complete the task.

I am from non-economic background, and I am currently on FX sales desk. It is very macro, and I initially struggled to understand how to understand big macroeconomic events. The tasks helped me to understand the markets and macro events, and speaking to different people at different desks enhanced my knowledge of finance and economics, and market reactions. I think understanding how market is driven by macroeconomics is very important for any kind of business activities.

Vibrant and energetic. A lot of interactions between traders and salespersons. If you are a kind of person who would like to work alone or enjoy quite environment, FRC sales & trading floor may be not a good option. People are generally very friendly and supportive. I have been doing tasks that require me to reach out to many different desks and people were helpful and nice to always find sometime to give me information. Whether they are juniors or seniors, everyone is willing to listen and provide some feedbacks. Sometimes you may be challenged in a way that you feel a little bit uncomfortable. However, it is good learning opportunity and taking the advice and putting into the action is also important. UBS promotes friendly yet competitive environment, and I think that is the best part I enjoy the most.

There are a lot of efforts put in by the business line and HR to make the internship and rotations as organised as possible. You have plenty of overviews, talks, socials and market insights where you can network and develop your knowledge from. It is also up to you to find out more about the business - it is well organised internship, but if you are willing to learn, there are always more opportunities and challenges you can take on. UBS is very flexible with how interns can achieve their own learning experience, i.e. you can arrange by yourself to sit at another desk for an hour while you are rotating at a particular desk. My advice would be, take an advantage of the well-structured internship programme, but always try to get more experience as possible.

UBS from my perspective, has heavily invested in the training programme. 1. Before you start: you are given online training programme based on your business line - for example, I had trainings on derivatives, FX, bonds, equities, etc. 2. First week: training by Fitch learning (again, depending on whether you are CCS or ICS) & personal development courses (e.g. self-pitch) 3. Teach-in session: traders/salespeople from business line teach you on different products 4. Market wrap up: weekly discussions on what happened in the market with 2-3 people from business lines and about 5 other interns 5. Trading game: every week, as a group, you present your trades and PnL to a group of traders (7-10)

It is definitely an excellent place to start the job - very supportive management and competitive environment that pushes you to be better. UBS invest their time and money to make intern programme really grate, and the very senior management find time to have breakfast with interns to answer questions and provide some useful insights. The general attitude towards interns show how we are valued as the next future generation. People don't think you are meaningless and value what you do, and thank you for small things you do. I think this is a good environment to learn and start your work.

Yes - we had many social occasions, women drinks, buddy drinks (UBS interns have a buddy who is a recent graduate), etc.

Nightlife is good - Liverpool street is near Shoreditch and close to any city centres. Broadgate circle (where UBS is) has a lot of bars and restaurants you can go after the work.

You start with volunteering opportunity in the first week.