Summer Analyst Review

The internship depends a lot on the desk rotations we get assigned ... in my case, I had two great rotations with outstanding teams. They gave me a lot of responsibilities, they rewarded hard work by pushing for me to get a job offer, and did their best for us to feel the most confortable in this new environment.

Business representatives were definitely aware of the presence of summer interns. and they dedicated a lot of their time for us ! We had many mentors / buddies that were always available to help, we presented our projects in front of very senior people, and some of us even had the chance to help teams in their day-to-day tasks, which shows that they valued our input ! Moreover, if we performed well and showed great motivation, the people at the bank would always be keen to find us a job: that is the best way to feel valued !

Our supervisors were always available to give us feedback / helping us on our projects, and formal performance reviews (with HR & our supervisors) were organized on a regular basis. For sure, since working in financial markets can prove to be very busy sometimes, we cannot expect representatives to be available at any time, but they would always reschedule and find another time for us.

The balance was perfect, enabling us to grow our network within the bank without being stuck with too much work. The main task on each desk rotation was to present a project at the end of the rotation : some of us spent a lot of time on it, but sill we could get very good feedbacks by working efficiently on the project ... they do not expect us to provide massive amount of work in a very short period of time at all. We could not also arrive before 7am and leave after 7pm.

It is hard to get much responsibility in this environment, because some us had merely no experience before, and performing well in those jobs can take a few months / years ... But since the goal of the internship is to get a job, by networking with as many people as possible, we already had a lot of (personal) responsibilities.

The training week was just outstanding: we were taught all the topics that matter in financial markets, in only one week time ! I had already studied finance at university, so I knew more or less what it was about, but I found it still really impressive to be able to teach all of this in only one week! It was thus very valuable for non-finance students, but also for students like me in order to get a quick & synthetic refresh before starting to work. Apart from the training week, we tend to develop a lot of skills during the internship: technical ones by shadowing sales/traders at theirs desks all day, as well as communication/interpersonal skills when we had to present our projects in front of 10/20 people.

The atmosphere was great ... I think it is a great idea to organize those internships during the summer, when business representative are more relaxed / have more time to interact with us. HR organized as well a lot of events (drinks / lunches / dinners) as an 'icebreaker' , which proved to be very useful to approach senior people. On the flip side, there was a little competition between students, but we should get used to this if we want to work in Investment Banking / Global Markets !

The internship was extremely well organized by HR, and if we had any question we could reach them very easily. We received all the necessary information (desk rotations / mentor contacts) a few weeks before the start date so we could prepare accordingly ! I would also mention the fact that every Friday afternoon, we could rotate in another desk if we wanted to - this required a lot of organisation by HR, and it turned out to work very efficiently !

As I said before, the training week was just impressive. BAML has clearly invested a lot in this session. It was not only about technical skills, but also interpersonal / communication / presentation ones. The trainings were lead by very experienced MBA teachers, as well as very senior business representatives from the bank who dedicated some of their very precious time for us. The content of the trainings was very original as well: for example, we reinforced our team spirit skills by working on a charity project with other interns (the goal was to help a charity on its marketing strategy).

They are very appealing ... nearly half of the interns received a full time offer ! Before starting the job, we receive a 1-month training in New York, which reinforces the idea that the organisation really wants to invest in its future workforce. As nearly all the Summer Interns are graduating one year after the end of the internship, we receive a job offer to begin the year after: this shows that the bank is really keen to commit for us, which is extremely rewarding as a student.

We got along very well amongst interns. HRs organized a lot of events (dinners, drinks) for us to spend time - not only with business representatives - but also with our fellow placement colleagues. Also, working hours were not extreme, so that we could spend time after work with other interns. It was a great pleasure to meet very nice & smart students throughout the summer !!

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