IT Project Manager Review

I very much enjoyed this internship. I worked as an IT Project Manager which is what I hoped to do after university, and the insight into this confirmed this was what I wanted to do. In addition, working for Lloyds is fantastic. There is a great ethos and community within the bank, and the bank's values are very effective in creating the best bank for customers.

I thought that as an intern I may be undervalued by my colleagues. However, this was never the case. Colleagues and team members expected the same quality of work from me as any other team member, and involved me inclusively in the entire project. They were incredibly supportive in helping me learn and gain experience, and gave me opportunities to develop my skills.

My line manager was great. On the first day, we sat down and discussed what I wanted to get out of the internship: we set objectives and identified ways I could develop existing skills and learn new ones. He was a constant source of guidance, support and motivation and was also very friendly. This meant I felt comfortable and confident asking him questions and getting his advice.

There were busy days and quiet days. There is no doubt that I had it easier than the full time staff, but that's not to say I didn't have my fair share of work to complete. With this role, it was often difficult to give me work to do, simply due to the ever changing nature of the project. That said, I utilised the many members of the team to help out wherever I could and ensure I had a constant supply of work to complete. I was never under pressure to do early starts or late finishes, or to work in my personal time.

As mentioned previously, I was surprised at the attitude towards interns from my colleagues. They gave me opportunities I never expected to have as an intern, and I was given several important responsibilities during my internship. This gave me confidence and skills, and an opportunity to showcase my ability to my team. This led to further opportunities being pushed my way.

I was very lucky in comparison to some of the other interns in that my degree directly related to my role. As such I was able to utilise some of the skills I had already learned from my academic studies. However, there is a big difference to learning theory and actually putting this theory into practice. It was great to be able to gain practical experience and further learning opportunities. I can utilise this new knowledge when I go back to university and improve my academic abilities.

This was the one negative I had about my internship. As a project manager, you are responsible for coordinating a large number of colleagues from different teams and divisions and bringing them all together to fulfil the requirements of the project. This means that the best people for these roles are spread out all over the country. In fact, there was only myself, a fellow intern and my line manager who worked in my office out of a 30 odd strong team. Much of my time was spent on teleconferences and communicating via email. There wasn't really much of an atmosphere in my office because there was only three of us, and when you take into account travel days and working from home, there was few times when we were all together and not on the phone!

The internship was well organised. Due to the ever changing nature of project management, every day is different and it isn't easy to plan ahead. Constant changes occur and vital skill of a PM is to be able to adapt to these changes and be flexible with the work. Therefore it is hard to plan a set up for a 10 week internship. That said, there was always structure to my work and constant exchanges with my line manager meant I was able to follow this.

Lloyds is a huge investor in talent. There is a massive focus on developing employees, and this is especially true for interns and graduates. There is a vast support network and endless opportunities to train and develop at your own pace. The group values the importance of developing its employees to allow everyone to reach their full potential and be the best they can.

Very. We have been given lots of information about how we can progress in the bank, initially through the graduate scheme and then beyond that. We have been exposed to a variety of colleagues from all levels and had the opportunity to hear from them about what they do. This has allowed me to see where I could be in the future. We have been constantly assessed throughout the 10 weeks, with a mid term review and an informal interview at the end. This goes towards our line manager referring us to the grad scheme.

The social aspect of Lloyds is very important. There were social events organised by the bank themselves, but also by interns and graduates. This was a great opportunity to meet other colleagues and find out what they are doing in their role and location. Gaining contacts and networking in this way is a huge positive and invaluable for the future.

I lived at home during my placement in Birmingham, and had to commute for around 1 hour. There were interns closer to where I live so it was easy to meet up with them. Cost of living and socialising was as expected for a city centre. From what I heard from other interns, accommodation was expensive however this was provided by Lloyds so was not at their own expense.

Birmingham has a great nightlife scene ranging from restaurants, bars and clubs. This gave plenty of opportunities for social events which were suited to all. This was certainly something which encouraged the social side of the internship. Again, this is typical of city centre working but was definitely a huge positive.

The biggest activity was the charity challenge. This was a compulsory challenge which actually counted towards our score for being referred to the graduate scheme. We were put into teams of 10-12 and had to raise money for Lloyds Principal Partner, BBC Children in Need. We competed against the other teams to raise as much money as possible in the most innovative way. This was a great team building exercise and has a great outcome of raising money for a very worthwhile charity.