Intern Review

The insight programme was well structured and the opportunity to network with business leaders and to tour the trading floor was very useful. The programme also involved a mock assessment centre activity: a trading game and I enjoyed both the activity itself, as well as the feedback on how to improve.

As a short insight programme, it was difficult to get a gauge on feeling valued. The graduate talent team were happy to help out during the day itself but a longer programme would have made me feel more valued at the firm. However, the team have been very happy to keep in touch and have offered support going forwards as an extension of the programme.

There was plenty of guidance available on the insight day and all involved were happy to share their experience. However, there was perhaps not enough focus on how to stand out to recruiters when applying to jobs which I think would have been more useful. Overall though, the HR team have been very helpful in filling in the blanks.

Many of the skills I’ve learnt will be useful in future careers and certainly, teamwork is a massive skill which activities such as the trading game can be very useful to consider. However, academically, Finance in general is quite different to taught material(s) so many skills are not especially directly transferable to my studies.

The programme was well structure and broadly fell under three key areas: • The first was a presentation from senior figures across the IBD and markets teams about the role of their team(s) and their experiences • A team based case study with some feedback on strengths and weaknesses • A tour of the trading floor

The general atmosphere was positive; however, it would have been nice to be given a bit more information on further programmes with RBC for the period. The people on the programme seemed nice and the organisers had evidently gone to a lot of trouble to organise excellent catering services which added an extra calming level to the atmosphere.

Given it was a short programme. There was a significant amount of training into how to conduct oneself at an assessment centre and a few tips as well. Obviously, a longer programme would provide a greater facility to increase the scope in this regard, however, given the short programme length a large proportion of time was spent on this area.

There wasn’t guidance pertaining to a fulltime role with RBC as the programme was for a spring insight. However, at a very senior level there was an indication of the focus for how the bank strategy is changing and the skills required to be successful. A longer programme would probably help to remedy this.

The programme gave me a great insight into the company culture. Hearing from senior business leaders about the values that they try to instil is very useful. It would have been nice to spend some more time in a functional role, perhaps shadowing a staff member or particular team member either in IBD or on the markets side for an hour.

There were plenty of networking opportunities and the day finished with a networking event. However to improve, I think that a good idea would be to spend time with a fulltime employee in a shadowing role to gain some exposure to one person rather than briefly meeting a number of people.

The day finished with a networking event where I got to talk to a number of different staff members about their jobs and why they enjoy working at RBC. This was a great opportunity to make contacts and have interesting conversations. One improvement could be to invite more people as there weren’t that may FTEs in attendance (in comparison to programme members).

I would definitely recommend the insight programme to a friend. The programme is virtually flawless and the only significant criticism is that I would have liked it to be longer and to spend more time with the firm. It is well organised and structured and the amount of content fit into a single day is very impressive.