Spring Week Intern Review

Given that this was a Spring Insight, it was good to have a high focus on work shadowing - however in my opinion, it was too heavy on work shadowing and the week did not need to be a 5 day programme - team often did not have enough for me to do which meant I was staring at a screen. Networking events and talks also excessive and just unnecessary.

Team I was shadowing in were very friendly and helpful but they just couldn't give proper work given the duration and level of experience - this meant it was difficult to 'feel valued'. HR were very good for the week and one was given a form of freedom to go and do your own things and follow the schedule.

A lot of support with regards to HR and telling us about the firm and how we can progress. A separate talk on interviews and the assessment process was probably one of the most useful bits of the week. Within my work shadowing team, very little guidance or support - felt a bit like surplus within the team and had a project to get on with which they did often ask how it was going but didn't seem to care too much

I don't think there were a huge amount of skills developed. Coming from a languages degree, there isn't necessarily a direct correlation. The degree involves a huge amount of analysis of information and the project I did honed onto this skill going through data to find patterns within a certain industry so these could be good transferable skills

This depends on personal preference. Personally I felt the structure was rather poor - a heavy focus on work shadowing because it didn't seem they had anything else to do with us. Many people said their team didn't really know that they were meant to be interning with them and many teams just didnt have anything to do. There was such a big discrepancy between peoples' teams which made it slightly unfair and annoying. The days did not need to end late as well with networking events as this could have just been done earlier, especially if they wanted you back early next morning.

Atmosphere was definitely good - all the peers were extremely enthusiastic - some would say overly enthusiastic but that is too be expected at such a programme. Atmosphere within the office was surprisingly positive with a lot of banter and jokes between colleagues - however it is definitely a work hard environment with no real lunch socials or any form of time to break and chill.

I think to some extent it did help with regards to more operational things - I know what is expected of employees and how life in the City functions as a corporate banker - this meant I could leant specifically about the working hours, the social aspects, friends they have, travel, living there. Do I know more about the actual work? No - I think this was a negative of the insight in that work shadowing needed to be more structured if they want to put so much of it in the insight

Think this is always tough as there were a lot of talks understanding the company culture, what they aim to do, how they are different and the values they hope to foster. However, talking to employees, a lot of the stuff which HR talked about was simply shown as pointless 'HR' chat - therefore I think everything had to be taken with a pinch of salt and really they should be more realistic about life with the bank

I dont think this was as helpful as I would have liked. It would have been great to actually understand more about the work that they do but given that the team didn;t really know why we were there, they gave a project which nobody working there would actually have spent that long on - it therefore did not feel relevant and so I couldn't see what the actual day to day work consisted of

Reimbursed expenses of up to £100 for travel and dinner on one night for £15

There were loads of opportunities to network within the firm. They had two evenings, one with more senior members of the bank and people from every division which meant you could learn about areas you werent necessarily interning with. One evening also consisted on networking with more junior members at a bar which allowed for a change of atmosphere and to talk to more recent joiners.

They had a talk on corporate social responsibility and on the different activities which employees tend to do e.g. women's society, diversity BME society, disability society - however, when I asked my team whether they do any of this or have even heard of these opportunities, they laughed and said there was no time to do this. It therefore made it quite upsetting that actually, this is more a lie which HR feed the students.

I would recommend it simply for the fact that you do get placed into the corporate environment and have the opportunity to be fast tracked for an assessment centre and interviews for a summer placement. However, if somebody already had a spring internship, i wouldnt recommend that they do another one - I think the basis is all the same - they tell you about how their firm is ideal but really, they all work excessively within their divisions and you are excess.