Spring Insight Programme Review

I found the Spring Insight at Rothschild highly enjoyable! The small group size of 25 spring interns is a great advantage, as this creates a strong community by the end of the week and you become friends easily with a number of very exciting people. The packed agenda is somewhat exhausting, but every day is completely different - you never get bored. I was surprised how serious Rothschild takes its commitment to CSR, because even the Spring Insight contains a couple of hours of volunteering (lots of fun and it's great to get to know the fellow interns outside the office atmosphere as well). Something that could be improved is the schedule of talks and workshops - long talks after lunch made us sleepy... Overall, definitely one of the most exciting weeks of my year!

I definitely felt valued during my week at Rothschild. Throughout the program, we met with a variety of people from different teams and hierarchy levels. Absolutely everybody we met seemed like they cared a lot about creating a great experience for us - by taking more than enough time to talk to us and answer our questions, guide us around the office (including a roof terrace with a gorgeous view) and also helping us on a project we had to work on (evaluate an M&A opportunity between two firms).

Basically, everything was very well-organized and a friendly HR team was always there to help us if we needed help. We were assigned a team project at the beginning of the week, where we had to analyze a potential M&A opportunity between two given companies (presentation of our findings at the end of the week). Especially if you are from a non-finance background (it's quite a challenge for finance people as well), it can be quite difficult to work through all the given information material - almost everybody was doing this for the first time. Although there was just a rough guiding outline on how to do this project (which I found great this way, because it forced you to think), every banker we met was more than happy to help us, answer questions, provide us with sample presentations etc.

I developed plenty of skills useful for work in general (university and beyond) through the team project - time management, how to approach lots of information, presentation skills, team working,...; but specifically (having finance courses in my degree) learning how to apply my university knowledge to a practical situation was extremely beneficial (and also fun). The information received throughout the week regarding the industry, markets, Rothschild etc. was of course very useful for my career prospects.

Very well structured - we were given a brief introduction and a detailed schedule on Monday with lots of interesting sessions. Almost everything began and ended on time, and we were never bored.

Amazing! It takes a day or two to break the ice between the interns (pub evening on day 1 helped a lot), but after this, we had lots of fun doing everything. A volunteering session outside the office in the middle of the week strengthened the community even more, as did the project competition in teams of 5. We had to work on this independently, so we usually stayed in the office for a couple of hours, which further helped us to interact. Friends who did spring weeks at different firms told me about very competitive atmospheres, which wasn't at all true for my spring insight at Rothschild.

On day 1, we were shown a special talk about personal branding and personal influence on others, which proved quite helpful and applicable during the rest of the week. I was quite satisfied with this amount of personal training given the short program length. Furthermore, we were given lots of information about the training that Rothschild provides for their employees.

In terms of the actual work, I believe Rothschild showed us as much as possible (confidentiality issues limit the extent to which they can involve external people in their day-to-day work) about what kind of work they do in different teams and different hierarchy levels. The project competition, which tried to mimic typical work involved in a deal, was very insightful in that sense. Regarding culture & working environment, Rothschild definitely did a good job in showing us how it is like to work at the firm.

A great deal - Rothschild conveyed its culture and working environment very clearly both explicitly and implicitly: Values and the company atmosphere were discussed many times, but what I experienced was very consistent with what I heard. It is quite fascinating how a family-backed firm with the right size (the office community isn't huge) creates a family-like atmosphere easily. Even during the week, I bumped into many people multiple times.

Lunch was provided on two days out of five, for the remaining days food expenses were reimbursed up to 5 GBP/day. Travel was reimbursed as well.

There were many opportunities for networking with people from various teams and hierarchy levels. Analysts joined us for lunch once, and during two work shadowing sessions (in groups of 2) we had plenty of time to bombard them with questions. Assistant Directors & Directors hosted an Afternoon Tea and also formed the jury for our project competitions. Presentations & workshops were given by Analysts, Associates, ADs/Ds/Managing Directors alike, and with a group of 25 it was easy to ask questions, follow up or chat before and after the sessions. Some employees also joined us for our Closing Drinks, and of course, HR was always there for us!

We had lots of fun! On day 1, we started with a lunch with analysts and Welcome Drinks in a pub close to the office including some ice breaker games. The remaining days brought an Afternoon Tea with Directors, Volunteering including lunch (which was kind of a social activity as well), and Closing Drinks on the last day with many Rothschild employees.

It wasn't discussed explicitly during a presentation or so, but employees were very keen to elaborate. Volunteering is definitely important to Rothschild, and employees are encouraged to get engaged in some charitable work as well.

Yes, definitely! It proved very enriching in terms of the skills and knowledge I acquired during the week, especially by working on the team project. The greatest benefit were probably the large number of new, very valuable friendships. Naturally, it also shows you well how it is like to work at Rothschild.