Corporate Banking Intern Review

Incredible insight into the financial services industry - I was able to tag along to client meetings every week. I also developed a strong understanding of the broader picture of the industry and how institutions are connected. But mainly the importance of customer relationships. I enjoyed the work, nothing too stressful but exciting knowing how your work is going to be used. As with most banking internships, I was heavily involved in creating powerpoints and pitchbooks for client meetings.

I felt like a real member of the team as I was involved with the operations and services my team delivered during my 10 weeks. They constantly acknowledged my presence and I was able to ask for help whenever I needed. I was able to have conversations freely with people and I really got to know everyone well. I had a very close relationship with my manager and his boss as well as the team overall. I really got to understand the importance of working in a team.

Constantly. Although this may differ depending on your manager, my manager was very supportive and guided my work in the correct direction. Most importantly, he was patient with me and allowed for mistakes. I feel this was extremely important in allowing me to feel comfortable and ultimately develop great work first time of asking. He allowed me to meet people from other teams for me to gain an understanding of the bank and its divisions, and even shadowing other teams for half days which was very nice.

You get a fair bit of work - but as I said I did not find it very challenging so I generally completed this fairly quick every time. Again, this differs depending on the person but I was very comfortable taking on a load of work and often had to keep begging for more work or to get involved in projects. The office is open 24hours, but the latest I have ever stayed is only 8pm. This was completely voluntary and there was no need for me to stay but I preferred to complete the work so I could get more from other people.

This may differ depending on where you work, but I was working in a front line client facing role so it is understandable that this is only a five out of ten. I do feel however I did contribute hugely in providing solutions so in a way my work was very much important and valued. I feel that you really needed to push yourself to be able to get involved. If you sat there then you would pretty much sit there till 5pm, so as I said you will need to push for work and responsibility.

Not too relevant to my degree - but as someone pursuing a career within the financial services industry this internship was invaluable. From client meetings with large corporations to getting a wider feel for how things work, I was able to get unique experience that is extremely important and you would be wise to try to find this experience yourself. Skills developed were team working, client meetings, MS Office, time management but MOST important was NETWORKING. I met people from all over the business including 7 MDs and people from other companies. This is where you start to make a name for yourself!

As you would imagine - an open office. Pop out or in anytime you want, people work from home etc. It was pretty flexible but as long as you was focused and did your work no one would really care. People were quite talkative so it wasn't as if everyone just had their head down. People would talk about football as it happened or go out to lunch or bring each other coffees etc. It was pretty friendly and open really.

Pretty well organised up to the point of when you started. You was sent constant correspondence on next steps and updates. You were assigned your graduate buddy fairly early and also your manager around a month before you started. I feel that it was fair to say it was seamless. However, after starting the internship wasn't poor but wasn't great either. It was organised to a simple standard and you did not receive much correspondence anymore, you were more in the care of your team. I felt it was nice that you were introduced to people every now and then such as product partners.

There were a few modules of mandatory training and an optional professional bankers course. The Pro Banker course was incredible, it really taught you everything you needed to know regarding banking on a simple level. However, the certification provided at the end was just a pdf of something that looks like something from primary school. It was a cartoon star and comic sans font- which was extremely unprofessional and made the whole thing inadmissible to put on your CV. You were also given a personal balance scorecard which allowed you to tailor your skills and show what you learnt.

Initially they were very attractive. From day one I set out in meeting as many people I can from all over the bank to get a feel of what the bank does. This was very much encouraged throughout the placement and before we started. I had a whole list of people I had ready to contact before I even started. I learnt about divisions and services within the company I never knew even existed. And actually it turned out I like divisions from other streams in the business. Half way through my placement this was very apparent to me and I had made up my mind on an INFORMED decision from networking and learning about the bank's business areas. I then met with 2 emerging talent colleagues and emailed a third to express my preference. I made it clear that "subject to a successful referral to the graduate program, I would like to switch my stream from commercial banking A to commercial banking B. I have over 20+ people who you can feel free to contact as referrals in that stream, including THREE MDs - and I am more that happy to do an interview to show how much I know about the stream." However, they said they do not accept swaps to other streams, and despite all of my efforts in networking and learning about that stream - it was simply dismissed as ET thought interns wanted to swap to that stream simply because it pays more which is completely ridiculous. It defeats the whole purpose of getting out there and learning where you would like to work in the future. So, be careful in the stream you choose because you are stuck with it.

I did not socialise much with other interns as I wanted to make the most of my 10 weeks by using it to get in touch with people I wouldn't usually be able to e.g. execs, area directors etc. So I spent most of my time setting up meetings and completing my work. I was however in a team for a charity fundraise with other interns.

I have lived and studied in London my whole life so I'm not too sure on how to compare this with other areas in the UK - but generally it is more expensive.

London

Yes there were many opportunities to fund raise for charities as this was a key group value at Lloyds.