Wholesale Compliance Intern Review

The internship was challenging and insightful. I had the opportunity to meet people from different business areas and everyone was willing to spend time with and explained their role.Furthermore my team was amazing and helpful and I will miss working in Santander.

I had weekly one to one meetings with my line managers where he highlighted my contributions to the team and he was very pleased with work. Moreover everyone in my team tried to give me challenging tasks and I was offered plenty of work where I had to take personal accountability.

My line manager and colleagues took plenty of time to explain tasks and when I required to be involved in new projects I was always given the opportunity. Furthermore everyone in my team took at least a couple of hours to explained a particular task and my work was reviewed regularly and I was given constructive feedback.

My line manager and colleagues provided with plenty of work and I felt like I was part of team at any point they treated differently because I was an Intern. The workload will change in a weekly basis since our team did monthly tasks I was busy at the end of the month and the beginning of the month with a gap of not much work in the middle however I took the opportunity to network and my line manager encouraged me to go and talk with people in different business areas.

At the beginning as with any job I started with basic task but as I demonstrated that I was capable to do more and I offered to take more responsibilities my line manager gave me plenty of tasks which would have been taken by a permanent member of the team.

This is the only area I felt the bank did not invest enough. I was given hardly given any training and there were hardly any opportunities to take any training at the bank. However, Santander runs a charity programme which helped develop communication, time management and team work skills.

The atmosphere was great, everyone was very helpful and friendly. In my office my line manager always tried to keep our a good team spirit and we had drinks a couple of times after work. There was a casual Friday and in general everyone was approachable and I was taken to lunch by a senior staff in the trading floor once which was great.

there was not much organisation in my department however there were other departments where there was a clear structure to the internship. I was assigned to a team and I had to be very proactive to obtain tasks to do for my team and it took nearly two weeks to obtain access to all the things I needed to do my job.

there were hardly any social events apart from the on boarding and off boarding events however we had a charity competition which brought a team of us together and he had a lot fun doing different activities for charity. I met a couple of interns in the canteen but in general there were not many opportunities to meet fellow interns.

I worked in London therefore the cost of living and socialising was high and if you live outside a London and relocate here for an internship your salary will only cover for your accommodation and food. I will recommend to prioritise your nights out and try to go to happy hours and pubs not so close to greater London where the minimum cost of a pint is £4.50.

Nightlife was great but expensive , we had very good pubs and clubs near work and Thursdays and Fridays they had really good atmosphere and you had the opportunity to network and meet many people from the bank. The only downside was that because Santander is not in the city or canary wharf I did not have the opportunity to meet interns or people from other companies.