Intern in Corporate Marketing Review

This internship surpassed my expectations. I imagined that the nine weeks would be predominantly work shadowing and helping people with their own tasks, but instead I have been given a wide variety of tasks and left to take responsibility for them. The overall culture at Barclays has been really enjoyable and it is somewhere I would definitely recommend.

My colleagues were very welcoming from day one. Everyone in my team was happy to spend thirty minutes of so talking to me about their role, experiences and any advice they had. I’ve never felt embarrassed to ask questions, and always felt like a person rather than just an employee.

Initially, I was left to work on my projects independently with little initial guidance. However, my manager and team were very happy to answer any questions when I asked them, and I found that by giving me the independence and responsibility to go about my projects in the way I thought best, I learned a lot more than if I had been spoon-fed at every step.

Over the nine weeks I have worked on around nine different projects, each with many different tasks within them. I have had to multi-task and have many different conversations on the go at once. This has meant that I have been pretty busy throughout the internship, always with something to do. The only times that I have had less to do were when people have been away on holiday and I haven’t been able to progress with a certain project – but in those situations I could continue with another project.

I was given a lot of responsibility across my tasks. From working with internal and external agencies, working on the website and creating content to be uploaded to social media channels.

Due to the variety of my projects, I learned lots of new skills. From specific skills related to the tasks such as building webpages and writing content, to improving my networking skills and learning how to work alongside people from a variety of backgrounds and business areas. Whilst my skills won’t particularly assist me with my final year at university, they will certainly help me in the future in the workplace.

The team had a sense of humour and we're always having fun, but balancing that with gettign work done.

I haven't heard about whether or not I'll be offered a place on the grad scheme yet - but if I am offered it I would take it, as I've really enjoyed the culture here. Especially when hearing about friends on similar programmes at other banks, Barclays seems to have a very friendly and forward-thinking atmostphere.