Summer Intern Review

I thought the internship was really enjoyable. Obviously, it's difficult to estimate how much work you'll be allowed to do during an internship, but I felt as if I gained a lot of exposure to a lot of different areas of work. The people were great, and I was treated well. I couldn't have asked for much more.

Very much so - I worked hard, and made sure I completed the work they asked me to, on time and to a top standard. They made it very clear that they were pleased with the work, which was echoed during my appraisals. At the end of the day, if you do a good job, you make their lives easier, and I was lucky enough to be in a team that thanked me for doing so.

From day one, I was assigned a "buddy", who was my go-to person during my internship. Even if this meant calling their mobile at midnight to get some help, they were always keen to help. I gained exposure to Directors too, who were more than happy to have a quick sit-down every week to discuss my progress. As long as you go to senior people with clear, structured and concise questions, I found they were more than happy to help. Everyone is always busy though so make sure you're not wasting anyone's time!

Very: everyone knows the hours in investment banking are hard. There is a vast amount of work to be done, with challenging deadlines and clients with high expectations. However, I never felt the need to engage in the "face time" culture: when my work was done and I had asked if anyone required any more help, I was encouraged to go home. Some days, I was able to get in a quick gym session at lunch too, but this usually meant I would get into the office half an hour earlier in the morning. It's all about managing your workload, and being honest with your team to manage their expectations, which again, they encouraged me to do.

I felt as if I had quite a bit of responsibility. For the first couple of weeks, the work I was doing was obviously fairly simple; a lot of market research. But it was all necessary: if I wasn't doing it, then the analyst would have had to. I wasn't able to complete all the modelling for a deal by myself, but I asked if I could shadow the analyst for certain stages, and he was happy to let this happen. If you want responsibility and challenges, they were happy to accommodate you: it was all about taking the initiative and making it clear that you wanted this to happen.

The office was fairly quiet. Lots of people think IB is absolutely manic, but in reality, the office was fairly calm. People have lots of work to do, and so for the majority of the day, it was simply a case of working at your desks, with fairly minimal interaction with other team members. This wasn't a bad thing though, and following the couple of deals that I saw through to the end, my directors took me out for a drink and things became quite chilled. I felt as if it was the right balance.

The 10 week internship began with a 1 week training scheme, where we learned all the basics. Going into the first week, I was worried about not having much experience on Excel, but by the end of the week, I felt well equipped. Throughout the internship, if I wanted to learn something or shadow someone on a specific task, I was able to, which I thought was really valuable. The graduate scheme starts with a 10 week training program, which I think shows Rothschild's willingness to invest in their employees.

The prospects at Rothschild are good. There is a very clear structure to progression, and everyone has to go through the same process. The majority of directors have worked their way up through the ranks, rather than being brought in from other firms, and thus, everyone knows what you are going through. We got the chance to sit down with HR and our line manager twice during the internship, to make sure we were on track and to address any concerns we may have had. The graduate scheme was explained to us in detail, and those who performed well on the internship were given the job at the end.

Despite being busy, the interns managed to get out occasionally on Friday nights. We all got on well, and in the first training week, Rothschild organised a social event on the Friday night, where we got to know eachother, as well as the graduates who were undergoing their training at the time. Rothschild also organised a couple of other events throughout the 10 weeks, such as a charity event and a drinks event, which were a nice break from the office.