Summer Analyst Review

As a student with many internship experiences in the past mostly outside of the UK, I must say that my internship experience at HSBC has been by far the best. Not only was I fully integrated in the team working on actual deals like an analyst, HSBC invested a lot of time and money in training the interns. Moreover, 10 weeks were very well planned with a variety of fun activities and learning / networking sessions.

As previously mentioned, I was fully integrated in the team, and therefore my work was crucial to the team. For this reason, I was valued by the deal team which I was part of and I felt appreciated by the seniors. However I also felt that 10 weeks of my hard work was not appreciated at all when one of the seniors was not happy with how the project was going. It is somewhat true that we are all replaceable in the investment banking industry.

I was surprised to see how approachable seniors were at HSBC. I had numerous chances which allowed me to ask for support and bring questions. More importantly I became friends with junior bankers who constantly helped me throughout the internship. In addition, there was mentoring and buddy programme which is a formal way to receive guidance and expand my network.

On average, I left the office at 2 in the morning, and was always staffed for interesting projects and tasks. Never have I sit at my desk with no task to do, which made the learning curve very steep. At times, it was very stressful due to the time pressure and workload, but this is just the nature of business.

As repeatedly mentioned, I was considered to be a crucial part of team, and my work directly added value to the overall projects I was staffed for. When I did a good job, I earned trust from the seniors and consequently was given more responsibilities. I believe it really depends on performance.

I think what I learned from the internship will not add much value in academia unless it is heavily practically oriented. However the work ethic and skill set I earned from the internship is something that is widely applicable across different sectors as well as academia.

The team was very supportive and friendly. They do take time to assist and support interns whenever they can, and show interest in you on a personal level. However, they may not necessarily have much time to invest on you, and therefore it will not be a Google-like culture.

This is what HSBC is really good at. As mentioned, they invest a lot of money to prepare the initial training sessions: technical and interpersonal. Moreover, they have systematic way of reviewing process and provide meaningful feedback. Also, the so-called 'Lunch and Learn' sessions will provide you with lots of opportunities to network and learn about other sectors within the organisation.

This question has been repeatedly answered in previous questions already.

It does provide you with quite an attractive remuneration package and training when you are a junior. The reputation itself however is not as laudable as American banks for instance.

This really depends on the team. During the internship programme, there were a lot of opportunities for networking and socialising with fellow interns and colleagues. However I figured that some times had a very dry culture, in which there was no vibrant social scene.

Cost of living in Canary Wharf area is not as high as that of central London. Socialising can be quite costly as the bars and restaurants in the vicinity are quite highly priced targeting investment bankers with high income level.

I am not very much interested in this and I did not have much time for night life.

There was a CSR day, in which the interns participated in social work. However there will not be much time for this.