Student Review

Overall I really enjoyed the week. The spring week was a fantastic opportunity to network with people across the different divisions within the front office at Barclays. During one of the days we had the opportunity to shadow people from the Markets division and this was super helpful in allowing me to know whether I was more interested in Markets or Investment Banking.

I felt extremely values during my spring week at Barclays. Throughout the week we were encouraged to ask as many questions as we wanted and this was super helpful as it created a relaxed atmosphere where we felt at ease. Also, the culture at Barclays is fantastic and this allowed me to ask questions I normally would have felt intimidated to ask. Everyone there was really helpful and ensured that we had everything we needed!

For the week we were allocated a 'buddy', with whom we met once during the week. This was super helpful as it allowed us to form a connection with a person who was actually on the Barclays Graduate scheme. This allowed us to ask questions about what our buddy does and learn more about the barclays culture as well as gain helpful insights/ tips on how to succeed at interviews.

At the end of the week we had the chance to participate in a debate. This has allowed me to develop my public speaking skills and helped me to try something I previously would have felt really uncomfortable doing. Furthermore, we had to work in groups to participate in a presentation and this massively improved my team-working skills. My university course involves a lot of group work and presentations and thus I have been able to gain invaluable skills from the spring week

The insight week was extremely structured. We were provided with accommodation from the Sunday till the Friday and this was extremely useful as it meant we were already settled in before we began the week on Monday. Furthermore, we were given a specific timetable and given tasks to do each day. We had the chance to do a lot of networking and this, for me, was extremely invaluable as it allowed me to get to know people that were on the spring week with me as well as people who work at Barclays

Overall, the atmosphere at Barclays was amazing! I absolutely loved the culture at the firm and loved how all our questions were answered. If I had any queries I did not hesitate to ask and the HR team were super helpful in making sure we were comfortable and knew what we were doing each day. I would definitely recommend this spring week to anyone who is unsure of whether to apply for Barclays as I highly enjoyed my time there

As we were each given a buddy throughout the week, we were able to ask him what it was like to work at the firm and what the procedure for getting a graduate job there was. This was helpful as it allowed me to gain a better insight into what roles are available and how the interview process may differ according to which division your apply for your job in.

We had the chance to do work shadowing and this was invaluable in helping to decide which career path to go down. Originally I was more interested in Trading but throughout the week as I learnt more about Investment Banking, I changed my mind. This led me to being interviewed for the IBD interview rather than the Markets interview for the 2018 summer internship.

At the end of the week all of my travel expenses were reimbursed and we were also provided with accommodation from the Sunday till the Friday of the spring week. The accommodation was in a really nice area and was located quite close to the Canary Wharf location of the Barclays office.

We had some fantastic opportunities to network with all the other attendees of the spring week as well as employees currently working at Barclays. Not the Monday we had a 2 hour networking session which was useful in getting to know quite senior people at the firm and learning about what they do on a daily basis. Throughout the week, there were a lot of panels where people from different division came to tell us about their job in more depth.

Definitley