Financial Analyst Review

Overall, I really enjoyed the summer placement at J.P Morgan. Professionally, it stretched me and I developed many new skills. I also had the opportunity to meet many interesting and inspiring individuals. I had a very enjoyable time on my placement and I am very glad that I chose to spend my summer vacation at JP Morgan.

During my time at J.P Morgan, I always felt very valued by my colleagues and team members. I did not feel like 'an intern', instead they welcomed me like they would any other member of staff. My team were keen to get me involved in interested projects and I always received feedback on my work, which made me feel valued, as they took the time to review my work.

I was very lucky in the fact that I always felt well supported by my line manager and fellow members of my team, however, I do know that not all the interns felt this way. Although very busy, my line manager would always set aside time each week to check in with me and provide feedback on my work. I also found HR to be very approachable should a problem arise.

Although the summer months do tend to be a quiet period, I always felt busy and there were some occasions where I worked over my assigned hours in order to complete all my work. There was a lot of information to process over a very short space of time, so the first few weeks were spent trying to absorb all this information. Once I was clear on that, my days were filled with project work and networking.

I felt that I was given a lot of responsibility and was actually quite surprised about how much autonomy I was given as an intern only there for 10 weeks! However, this responsibility gave me the opportunity to prove to my manager and team members what I was capable and that I could lead on and successfully execute projects.

I massively improved my knowledge of financial products and this will benefit me in any future career in the financial sector. Aside from this, I developed many transferable skills. This included communication and presentation skills, networking and interview technique. I feel that all of these skills will benefit me for life. I definitely received a lot of valuable hands-on training and I am sure that all accounting practices and the whole Agile methodology will be very helpful to me in the future.

Although professional, I found the overall atmosphere to be welcoming and fairly relaxed. I was expecting everyone to be fairly serious but most employees were friendly and you could have a laugh with them. I sometimes went out for drinks afterwork with my team which was fun. Most people tended to get to the office around 8:30 and leave by 6, however, the company is pretty relaxed on adjusting your working hours slightly, which was good.

I found the scheme at JP Morgan to be very well organised and structured. I was provided with endless information before I began and the HR team was very quick to respond to any questions. We had an orientation week to introduce us to the business, as well as numerous training sessions. There was a really useful speaker series organised for us also.

I felt that I had a lot of personal development training and that JP Morgan had invested a lot of time and resources into my development. I found the online training to be very useful as it ensured that I was well informed of the banking lay out and procedures. My line manager had me complete a goal setting document, which highlighted the key areas I needed to develop, which I then worked on.

Future employment prospects within the organisation are very appealing. There are good future employment prospects within the organisation if you are willing to work hard. I was offered a future job, but I know that many of the other interns were not. Getting a job completely depends on the performance that you have in the internship role and how well you are involved in the daily tasks.

I found there to be a really great social scene amongst fellow placement students. As many of us did not know the area very well (Bournemouth), we tended to stick together and would social together in the evenings. We would often go out for dinner and drinks, as well as occasionally going out clubbing together.

The cost of living in Bournemouth was pretty reasonable. At JP Morgan, you are granted a generous salary and I found it to be more than enough to live off. The cost of renting wasn’t too expensive and I was able to rent a modern and comfortable one bedroom flat for the summer. The cost of socialising and going out was pretty reasonable also.

I was really pleased with the quality of the nightlife in Bournemouth. I did not know the area well before I joined the programme, but there are lots of nice restaurants and bars around the city, as well as a number of nightclubs. Being by the beach was also really nice and there really is something to do for everyone in Bournemouth.

There were quite a few possibilities and societies that one could sign up for that were focused on different things which I felt was a very good thing. Also, there were barbecue nights, scheduled runs around the office building and so on, which had a positive effect on the morale of the employees and most people enjoyed participating in those.