Finance Strategy Analyst (Intern) Review

The job I was doing was extremely enjoyable. I was given quite a lot of responsibility and got to learn many new skills. The only reason I am giving 9 and not 10 stars is due to the fact that some issues unrelated to my day to day tasks sometimes made it hard for me to enjoy the internship to the maximum. See below for more detail.

My line manager made clear that he was very grateful for the work I was doing and he made every effort to involve me in important decisions. I have also had the privilege of taking part in weekly meetings among all managers in my team. However, it sometimes felt a bit as if the other members of the team did not really feel responsible for me and I got the impression that they saw me as a right hand to my line manager rather than the entire team. As a result, if they did appreciate my work, they would have probably communicated it to my manager instead of myself. I also didn't know exactly how the work I was doing was related to the work others were doing, thus struggled to approach people other than my line manager.

Unfortunately, my line manager did not give me as much guidance as I expected. Even after several requests for more specific and frequent feedback, I still did not get much more than a "you're doing alright" every now and then. Only at the very last review meeting did I get more helpful feedback, but at that point, It was already too late to act on it. My line manager left on annual leave just two days after I arrived and left me with a brief email containing links to files that I was meant to update. While I enjoyed not being spoon-fed, it was quite difficult to understand what he wanted me to do with such a short introduction. Him being away also meant that I did not really get to have someone who would introduce me to the department and answers all of my initial questions. when he came back, he probably assumed that I had eased in and didn't need any more introductory guidance. The team was also incredibly busy, with most people working overtime on a daily basis. In that environment, I felt very intimidated to ask for help or for someone to look over the work I had done. Even a simple chat would have been nice but most of the time everyone was scrambling to get tasks done. I did have weekly 1 to 1 meetings with my line manager, which were meant to give us an opportunity to discuss any issues or questions, etc. However, I found the meetings slightly awkward and found it hard to speak openly to my line manager. I tried to start a conversation through entries I made into my weekly learning log but he did not pick up on those and even told me at one point that he did not want to read about my comments. To clarify, I do believe that this is a two way process and I certainly could have done a few things better to improve on the relationship. My line manager did encourage me to ask questions and every time I did he was more than willing to help. With a little improvement in interpersonal skills and communication, I believe the guidance might have been better.

I was given three longer term projects and two short term tasks on top of an internship project and a fundraising challenge. All of these together definitely added up to a full time job and sometimes even required me to work overtime. In fact, until the last week I have never struggled to fill my working day and got caught by surprise quite a few times when I realised it was already time to go home.

Almost a bit too much to handle. I was involved in a decision making process on whether or not my department should continue offering a specific service, including responsibility for updating the current costs and revenues. I was even asked to write a decision paper on the subject to be submitted to the management team. While I really appreciated this level of involvement, I felt at times that the expectation was inappropriate for someone who had just joined the business and did not yet know the ins and outs of it. The area I worked in required a substantial amount of technical knowledge and most members of the team had been working there for several years, It felt wrong for me to advise them what to do, especially given the fact that I really struggled to understand a lot of the general information I had to take in. Similar comments apply to the internship project. The bank was keen to hear interns' perspective on how to improve efficiency and how to keep up with competitors, citing our unique experience and technical understanding. However, I do believe that it is not entirely suitable to ask someone who has just joined the business and does not have as much depth of understanding as their colleagues do, to advise the team on what to do. In my case, an additional obstacle was that there was very little information publically available and the information I did find was later criticised as out of date and unreliable. While the project was not designed to make us devise a binding strategy, thus did not technically involve much responsibility, it still put a lot of pressure on us. Almost all other tasks I was given were also relatively high on the responsibility scale. The results I produced were going to be used by other members of the team as sources of information and saved on shared drives. My line manager trusted me that I was able to do the jobs to a high standard, thus mostly left me to do it on my own. He said to me at one point that in his opinion the internship was designed to find the future leaders of the bank, which is why he gave me so much responsibility, Another intern might have enjoyed that approach but for me, who does not necessarily aspire to a leadership role, this was a bit unnerving. Sadly, my line manager did not pick up on my discomfort with the responsibility, even though I did communicate it to him. A chat on how to work things out so both of us are satisfied would have been very helpful.

I can't really say that yet as I don't know what I will end up doing in the future. However, with the area I worked in being so niche and my degree not being related closely to finance, I doubt that I will use much of it unless I decide to take up a job in the same area again after my studies. Some of the soft skills may be useful, though and it definitely helped having the chance to experience a 9 to 5 job.

Everyone goes about their job but there is a decent amount of chit chat going on. I never felt like it was extremely awkward or reserved but also not the life of the party. As I said earlier, many people were struggling to meet deadlines and worked overtime so it can get intense or stressful at times. As a result, not everyone is always willing to spend 30 minutes or so to chat to you as an intern, especially if it is just to network. However, almost everyone is very approachable and does their best to accommodate you.

The main criticism I have is that the internship assessment process did not seem well thought through to me. This year was the first time that RBS introduced a weekly learning log for interns to complete and discuss with their line managers. Unfortunately, the guidance we received from the early careers team was relatively vague and did not always correspond to the expectation our line managers had. Speaking to other interns, I discovered that everyone was pretty much having their own take on it, thereby making comparison very difficult. I myself had an idea of how I thought it was to be filled in but my line manager had a different idea and we did not manage to come to an agreement. This was mainly because my line manager seemed very convinced that his idea was the right one and did not accept the challenge from me. The internship project was problematic, too. Every program had a generic question (or two) that interns had to work on, regardless of the department they were in. As it happened, the question I received was almost irrelevant to my area of work and so I had to take a totally different angle on it. This, in addition to what I mentioned earlier about it being difficult as an intern to make suggestions to the team, meant that the project felt like a bad way to assess the skills it was meant to enable us to demonstrate. In RBS, everything is assessed against a set of standards, which essentially have a vague title and more specific subtitles. While the title can be interpreted in various different way, thus making them extremely subjective, the subtitles are at times so specific that they're not always applicable to every role. As a result assessments can be arbitrary and very depending on the approach your line manager takes. Furthermore, as far as I understand, the HR team who is involved in making the decision whether or not to hire you, receive a summary of your assessment outcomes from your line manager, which in my opinion is problematic as it is a distortion of your actual performance. In short, the assessment is quite arbitrary and subjective and interns' fate is very much depending on their relationship with their line manager. The induction week was relatively well planned out and so were the events throughout the internship. Sometimes days during the induction or when there was a social after work, could get a bit long, which was a struggle especially when you're already working overtime. I have not been to the social events but I have heard from other interns that they weren't well attended anyway. Socials always occurred on a Thursday, meaning that many people would come to work tired on a Friday, again not ideal. Many interns, including me, also struggled to get access to the computer systems during the first few days, which meant that we were unable to do any work or receive emails. This is a common problem with all new joiners at the bank. We were assigned a buddy who was on the graduate scheme and was meant to be there for us to help. For some this worked out, for some it didn't. I personallt have had contact to my buddy before the internship, and again towards the end and she was always willing to answer questions. I think the buddying scheme was very helpful especially in the beginning.

I can't think of anything substantial that the bank has made available for interns in terms of training opportunities. We did get some generic information during the induction week and were required to complete online learning modules during the internship. I found these to be ineffective, though, and not at all engaging. No certification or summary was made available to use as proof of completion. The only training we received was on the job training.

This is very difficult to answer since the internship only gave us an idea of the work within one department. I don't know if other jobs would suit me as well as the one I did during my internship. Relating to what I wrote earlier about the assessment process and the lack of guidance, I would also hesitate to take up a job which included a similar degree of judgement by my line manager. I believe that the relationship between manager and employee should be one of cooperation, communication, honesty and empathy, not constant assessment and against arbitrary standards. Other than that, I would definitely recommend RBs as a workplace to friends and family and would certainly consider applying for employment myself.

Yes! I myself commuted 2 hours to and from work every day so I did not get a chance to join many events. However, if I had wanted to, there would've been multiple opportunities. I must say though that I was not happy about the amount of alcohol involved in most social events.

I did not live in the area but in another city where living costs were much cheaper. The season ticket for the train was expensive but not as expensive as getting a flat in my work location. In terms of socialising, there was definitely more than enough opportunities and places available. within 30 minutes drive of the office.

I guess it was good but I did not go out at night so I wouldn't know.

There are multiple sports teams and some social groups we could have joined. Again, because of my commute, it was difficult for me to stay an hour or two longer in the evening so I did not get involved in any of them.