Student Review

I found the spring week highly enjoyable and useful for learning about the company culture at Barclays, their many technological innovations and the types of roles you can be employed into on the Knutsford campus. There were also many opportunities to network and improve my soft skills. The people were all very nice too.

I felt highly valued, the company had invested lots of money into us to cover our travel expenses, food costs and had were even giving us £250 each after the programme was over. They also invested lots of time into us to prepare a well-structured programme and take people out of their daily jobs to speak to us.

There were lots of opportunities to ask questions, such as the networking events, during the talks and work shadowing. People were very open and happy to answer these. We also had a CV/interview workshop and a soft skills session to improve our understanding of workplace behaviours and social styles which was very useful to finding out more about yourself.

During the week, I received lots of information about the soft skills that you need to succeed in any career and learnt about my workplace social style, which will enable me to work better in group projects in the future. I also learnt what coding skills I should try to learn to pursue a career in development

It was generally well structured. I found that the first two days had slightly too much sitting down and listening to talks, which was sometimes quite tiring and made it difficult to focus, especially when listening to talks after lunch. It would have been better to do something more active during these times.

The atmosphere was generally fun but intensive. The HR people running the event knew how to keep things light but be more strict when they were required to. The overall atmosphere at the Barclays Knutsford campus seems to be very relaxed and supportive. You are allowed to be independent and can do things your way.

Had some interactive soft skills sessions to help with your workplace behaviour.

I developed a good understanding of the company culture and flexibility you have to fit your work in around your daily life.

Everyone giving the talks and speaking at the networking sessions/work shadowing talked extensively about how much they liked the work culture.

The content of the day was very useful. There were a range of technical talks to explain the different departments and technological innovations, some interactive sessions on soft skills, CVs and interviews, and work shadowing opportunities to allow you to find out more about the daily lives of the workers.

I recieved £7.50 a day to cover the costs of my food on campus, so my lunch and any snacks or coffees I wanted to buy, £15 to cover my dinner at the hotel, and all my travel costs were reimbursed. I was also paid £250 on top of this. During the week I rarely had to spend more than my allowances

Yes there were three networking opportunities and 2 work shadowing sessions.

They were generally very good, with a nice range of people in different job roles, so you could find out about the roles you were really interested in. The employees were very happy to answer questions about their jobs, daily life, company culture and their routes into the jobs. They were also willing to give LinkedIn details/emails. Some of them were more outgoing and easy to talk to than others though.

The Barclays Knutsford campus is similar to a university campus with many sports facilities and other recreational activity facilities. We did not get to see these facilities but heard of many of the workers going out during their lunchbreaks to get involved with a sport or go out of the campus to have lunch with friends etc.

Certainly!