Commercial Banking Review

I enjoyed my summer internship at Lloyds, from the outset the team made me feel welcome and each helped shape my understanding of the role and the business. I enjoyed being provided with tasks that were valued by the team and were also engaging to complete. I felt that I had enough responsibility but not so much that I felt overwhelmed.

I felt my colleagues from the outset actively tried to engage with me and show an interest in the tasks I found myself involved in. I often was involved in feeding back what I had been involved in to the team. Additionally, I felt colleagues from around the business were open enough to have a one to one talk with me regarding my work.

I felt I was given ample support and guidance by my line manager. I had regular catch up meetings in which we discussed the progress I was making with my current tasks; this gave me the opportunity to ask for help and advice on them. My line manager also gave me guidance on the direction of my work which enabled me to develop more skills and best practise.

The tasks I was involved in often spanned a couple of weeks and so I had time to work on them a little bit every day. This ensured that I was not overrun with work, however, on some occasions I found myself with little work whilst waiting for responses. On the whole I had enough work and meetings throughout each day.

I felt through the couple of tasks I was involved in they were of some benefit and of interest to the team and so I had a responsibility to complete and deliver them appropriately. Although I did not get involved with high level work there was the right amount of responsibility and not so much that I felt under too much pressure.

The tasks I was involved in utilised MS Word and PowerPoint and so I developed more familiarity with this software. Being in a professional environment and delivering feedback in meetings also allowed me to improve upon my communication skills. These skills will be useful when starting third year in order for me to communicate in group work assignments and to present my coursework in a more professional format.

The office is a professional environment and so the atmosphere followed in being corporate and professional. However, it was relaxed in the sense that you could talk to your team in a relaxed manner within the office. Additionally, Friday’s were casual clothes days and so the atmosphere was a bit more relaxed. However, this was only in my particular location and it differs across locations.

There was an initial induction event for all the interns where all the basics were explained. However, I felt that the company they used for our pay/timesheets did not explain how the system worked very well. The work tasks were organised and distributed by your line manager. Along with this there was a charity challenge organised that all the interns had to take part in amongst a team.

There is a platform of e learning which holds many online courses which can be accessed whenever you had some free time to enable you to work on certain skills or learn more about your department. On beginning the internship there is a lot of mandatory training and courses on this platform that need to be completed and there is also the opportunity to shadow other colleagues depending on your team and line managers approval.

There are graduate opportunities but not many in comparison to how many interns are taken on.

Aside from the induction for all the interns, there was no induction for interns in the one location they worked and so I felt there were a lot of people who had not met each other. Due to this I felt social situation amongst interns were segregated into groups, however, people did still make an effort to socialise.

Average

Working in the Bristol office there is a great amount of bars and restaurants within walking distance of the office and the accommodation so socialising on a work night will not be too taxing to travel anywhere. There is considerably less choice of clubs then in the London location, however, they have a lot cheaper entry fee.

Quite a few charitable and volunteering activities.