Fixed Income Summer Intern Review

Overall it was an excellent and rewarding experience where I felt valued and challenged throughout the ten weeks. The internship is the perfect introduction to working at Fidelity because you get to meet the people you could potentially be working with and find out if your skillsets match those required for the profession. I would strongly encourage anyone considering a career in asset management or any type of financial firm to apply.

Colleagues treated me as an equal from the first day and seemed genuinely interested in my input when discussing different funds or investment opportunities. At the start of my internship I had time booked in everyone on the teams calendars so they could give me an introduction to their backgrounds, what their role is and most importantly how their work impacts the firm as a whole. If anyone was attending a meeting they thought I might find interesting or helpful they made sure to invite me and take time to fully explain the more technical aspects and check that I fully understood what was going on.

For both of my rotations I was given a document with a clear project outline on the first day so I knew exactly what I was working towards which helps immensely when deciding how to plan your time out. If I had any questions my manager was always happy to answer and I had regular weekly catch ups to check I was on track and to see if I needed any extra support. In my credit research rotation especially my manager took a lot of time to set up conference calls with investor relations of the companies I was covering.

In general I got in for 8 and left about 6ish. Average of one hour of meetings a day but apart from that I was left to spend my time how I saw fit. So at the start of each rotation things were pretty relaxed and then as it got closer to my presentations the workload ramped up. My credit research rotation was significantly busier with a lot more contact with sell side analysts and investor relations of the companies I was covering.

All of my work was for internal use so none of it was seen by people outside of Fidelity, but it was work that was genuinely helpful to the team. The companies I was covering weren't covered by another analyst at the firm so my models and reports should actually be useful to the portfolio managers when the make their investment decisions.

The learning curve was very steep once I started on the job, but the training and help I received was excellent. We started with a week of training including 3 external days at Kaplan Financial learning about macroeconomics, accounting and excel training and 2 internal days learning what Fidelity does as a business and how to model companies. The analytical skills I have developed will be invaluable whatever role I end up in. Fidelity really invest in you as an individual above and beyond what I've heard from friends interning at investment banks on the sell side.

The Fixed Income floor is completely open plan, with the portfolio managers and traders sitting in the middle and the analysts spread out around them. This makes the floor a lot friendlier because everyone ends up talking to everyone no what team they are in. The only downside is it can sometimes be a bit loud when you're trying to work but then you just put headphones on to help concentration.

The organisation was absolutely perfect. HR made sure everything ran smoothly from the first day to the last. We were provided with schedules both in paper and on our outlook calendars at the start of the internship containing events for the whole ten weeks so you always knew well in advance which lunch times and evenings to keep free. On my first day I received an introduction pack which had all of the information that I needed for my time at Fidelity as well as pictures and bios of everyone working on the floor, which made in much easier to remember names and find out who I needed to talk to if I needed help.

As I said previously we had both internal and external training in the first week which was very helpful. Beyond that we had 'lunch and learns' twice a week where we heard about a different area of the business e.g. Equity Research or Pensions. This gave us a chance to find out how Fidelity ran as a business and how all the different departments fit together to provide the best possible service for the client.

It's an excellent firm to work at. The graduate programme is two years long with four rotations and even the potential to work in Hong Kong for 6 months. Beyond that there is scope to roll off the grad scheme onto your chosen desk and then progress through the company.

We met for drink most Fridays and Fidelity put on a few events throughout the internship with dragon boating at Canary Wharf being the clear highlight. But everyone is obviously very busy so it was more common to grab a quick lunch or post work drink than go on a full night out or spend weekends together.

I go to uni in London and the lease on my flat covered my time on the internship as well so there wasn't really an extra cost on rent. But you'll struggle to find a decent lunch under £6 unless you make it yourself and drinks can get ridiculously expensive if you're not careful (£5 pints and £15+ cocktails). It's central London though so it's to be expected and your salary is more than enough to cover everything.

Central London so some of the best clubs in the world, if you've never lived here then every experience will be new and you will love it if you're into that kind of thing.

There's a Fixed Income 5 a side game every couple of months and quite a few people play squash every couple of weeks. We had an intern treasure hunt before we started which was fun and a great way to meet everyone. There was a charity day where we were set the task of raising as much money as possible for the children's charity Rainbow Trust.