Retail Intern Review

In general, I very much enjoyed my internship at Lloyds Banking Group. At first there was an awful lot to learn and I didn't really get started on 'work' for the first couple of weeks. Once I had the background knowledge however, I became really involved in the company and thoroughly enjoyed the work I did.

The office really did feel like a family. I worked in a small office, where everyone knew each other very well and were really friendly. Whilst we got a lot of work done, we also had a lot of fun! I came into contact with many colleagues outside of the office too. Again, they were all very friendly and took me, as an intern, seriously.

I was given a fair amount of support and guidance by my line manager. At first I was given a lot of support to aid my induction, and naturally, as the internship went on, the levels of guidance went down. I quite enjoyed this as it gave me greater flexibility on what I wanted to focus on and where my natural strengths were.

At the start of my internship, I wasn't that busy as I couldn't get involved in too much without the necessary training. As such, I sometimes was lacking work to do. As time went on, I got more and more busy. At times it seemed like there was a little too much to do, but this wasn't too often the case. In general, I seemed to be the right level of 'busy'.

Again, the responsibility I was given rose as the internship progressed. At the start I wasn't given a huge amount of responsibility and the tasks I was given we very scripted. By the end though I was in charge of what I wanted to focus on and had much more responsibility. I was also responsible for a charity event covering a large part of the country.

I think the skills I developed will have a greater impact beyond my studies than on my studies itself. Whilst I learnt about how larger organisations function and the benefits/costs (related to my degree) will help, I developed my core skills much more. I think these will help in future roles. I came into contact with a lot of colleagues, which helped me improve my inter-personal skills and presentation skills.

The general atmosphere of my office was great. We were a real close-knit office, in part due to how small our office was, but also thanks to the culture at Lloyds and the general friendliness of colleagues. Although I was working with senior people, it didn't feel hierarchical and they would try to include me in as many things as they could.

This part could be better. The communication prior to me being successful in getting an internship was poor. It was often spread over a large period of time and the responses to my emails were untimely and confusing in their content. Once I had found out I had been successful in my application, the communication from then on was pretty good and everything went smoothly.

The first two weeks was just training and spending time shadowing various colleagues in the organisation. I was amazed by how much effort these individuals put in to showing me what they do and helping them in shaping my career path. Throughout the internship, my line manager and other colleagues were always providing me with feedback, which was really helpful.

I would definitely consider working for Lloyds again the future. From what I witnessed, there is a lot of room for progressing to senior levels of the organisation in a relatively short period of time, as long as you work hard and are a real team player. If I get offered a place on the graduate scheme, I will definitely accept it!

Unfortunately the location of my internship was not close to any other interns. From the interns I met though that were near other interns, it seemed like they were having a great time. As an office we would every now and then do something together, though not too often.

I lived at home so it was very cheap.

The nightlife near my house is appalling!

There were not too many opportunities as our office was quite small and didn't too often organise events.