Intern Review

A really enjoyable ten weeks (despite the 7 am starts) thanks to a good, close group of interns and a strong sense of integration into the firm from day 1. Learnt a lot by being able to rotate on 3 different desks, while meeting people working on many other desks too.

This varies from desk to desk of course. Some desks, such as trading, will inherently value interns less as interns aren't able to trade and thus help the desk. On the other desks, however, I felt highly valued as my work was and is now still being used by at least one of the desks.

I was given support whenever I needed it. Nomura's work environment is such that you can essentially walk up to, message or email any employee here at any time if you have questions, need support or just want to shadow them to see what they do. Additionally, it was useful - though not hugely - to have a mentor and a buddy, who know the firm and can give small tips and tricks.

Very busy. Again this will vary from desk to desk, but will also vary from day to day. However, on days where there is less work to do for the desk, you spend your time reading up on topics you don't understand. Nomura provide an excellent online learning portal. Having spent 25h+ on this I still haven't scraped the surface and look forward to learning more on here.

Once again, this will vary from rotation to rotation. On my trading rotation, I held less responsibility, as I was unauthorised to do any trading myself. However, I was instead given a project that - if I had completed it well enough - would have been used to give the team some colour on the market, so there is scope to have responsibility here. On my other desks, I was given lots of responsibility - e.g. preparing presentations for clients, going along to client meetings, spending days on excel to create material for Nomura reports that are shared with the whole firm and with clients etc...

The communication and time-management skills you develop in the fast-moving busy environment that Nomura provides, will inevitably come in handy in the future. Coming from a technical background, however, I feel like the most significant skills I learned was the theory that explains how markets are moved by micro and macroeconomic events.

The atmosphere is what I assume most banks' office atmospheres to be like. Generally professional, yet very relaxed and collegiate. A sense of lots of small teams working in a big room and strong teamwork amongst the desks.

An extremely well structured internship, with presentations and events both in and out the office on a weekly basis (often with 2 or 3 presentations/events a day). Despite the internship being very well organised and structured, however, there is plenty of scope for interns to do their own thing by talking to other desks etc.

The firm certainly attempted to invest heavily in all the interns to develop both personal and professional skills. However, I felt many of these skills were skills I had previously gained either in my previous education and experiences or previous work-placements

Good. A significant portion of the intern class has been offered full-time employment positions.

Very good social scene due to a great intern class. There's a pub in the building which all the interns end up going to at least once a week, often resulting in nights out afterwards. There were also several barbeques and other outings with some of the interns.

Expensive. London is expensive to live in. I give this 4 stars, however, as there are plenty of affordable pubs and bars around town.

No-one can complain about the London nightlife - only thing is pubs close too early in this city.

This job inherently has long work hours, but if you're organised you can certainly get involved in activities after work. I played football once a week and went climbing every other week. Most weekends are completely free, unless you haven't finished a piece of work for a presentation/your desk for the following week.