Off-cycle intern Review

To start the recruitment team was extremely helpful throughout the process and the programme has been designed to make sure that every intern gets as much exposure as possible to different product areas within the division. The team I was working with was immensely welcoming and gave constructive feedbacks at regular basis even for the interns.

The team certainly treated me like part of the team and entrusted me with different types of tasks. I was given independence to drive some of the projects even within the 10 weeks I was there. Help was always available from everyone on my team regardless of if they were busy or their titles.

Supervisors and colleagues at MD level were willing to take time out in order to have meetings with all the interns at regular interval throughout the internship to provide constructive feedback and suggestions. They genuinely were interested in making sure the interns feel welcomed and make the most of the programme. Despite the steep learning curve, I have never gotten so much support in a team throughout the process.

It really does vary a lot from day to day basis. In terms of the desk job, a quiet day could mean reading on your own while a busy day (or rather a busy week) could involve multiple deadlines to meet with various smaller tasks popping up along the way. Overall, I enjoyed the challenges and the distribution of the workload.

Again, I think this is well balanced. In the beginning, I was given simpler tasks such as modifying slides and relationship maps but as the programme progressed I was allowed to run a few projects by myself with regular feedbacks on them. I felt challenged but not overwhelmed with all the guidance available.

While I have already finished with my degree but because my degree was not finance related the knowledge that I have gained during the internship was tremendously helpful as a foundation for my graduate role. The skills in modeling and client communication are undoubtedly going to be useful in all kind of circumstances in the future.

While the atmosphere can be quite serious at work hour, everyone was ready to attend my questions. The structure was very non-hierarchical and everyone was hot desking i.e. you can be sitting next to an analyst one day and having a director as a desk mate the other. Though you can have a personalised space, the upside being you get to know much more people than you otherwise would by staying within your comfort zone.

The placement was very well organised and the organised made sure that we are always learning about the different areas of the bank. The team was easy to reach for any question. The only area which can be improved is keeping the interns informed on the programme schedule. It would be much nicer if I was being told the schedule for different events from much early on rather than the same week but that's a minor point.

I was given the opportunity to attend multiple training sessions on topics ranging from financial analysis to software specific training. There was at least one skill related talk and product-specific talk every week. Within the team, there are content sharing sessions and team meeting every week so I was constantly learning and be up to date with the projects the team are involved in.

Got a job by the end of the programme and they gave a lot of feedback for us to improve on. The feedbacks were collected from multiple people including your mentor, buddy and line manager to make sure their decision was well rounded and fair. They were trying to help all the interns along the way to secure a role with their graduate programme.

The first few weeks were great for socialising among the interns from different divisions. This becomes more difficult towards the mid and the end of the programme as everyone got busy with their work and tend to have different working hours. The dynamic transformed from interacting with fellow students to fellow colleagues towards the end of the internship.

The bar right in the proximity can be quite expensive but there are cheaper options. You could definitely get better value for money elsewhere with much better drink options too. Cost of living in London can be expensive but this is also area dependent with travel time as the main tradeoff usually.

It's London so while there is not much clubs or theaters around area central London is only a train ride away.

Apart from the gym and voluntary works, there were not many options for interns. However, there are many events you could go to in London which are not directly linked to work.