Commercial Intern (investment specialist) Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my placement: M&G is a super friendly environment where everyone is patient, generous with their time, and happy to share their expertise. The work was very interesting, though I can't speak for everyone in my cohort on this. However, I do feel that managers make an effort to look after interns, or at least pass them on to someone who has time for them. By the end of the internship, my team honestly felt more like friends, and had taught me so much about the industry, the company, and working life.

My colleagues always treated me kindly and with respect. I worked with people who had decades of experience, but no one was patronising or impatient, and I was genuinely treated as an equal. My team took me out for drinks and social events, and offered frequent praise as well, so I felt very valued.

My manager was superb: always willing to help and offer advise, to the extent that they would tell me to ask more of them! Generally the team was understanding and gave me fairly simple, non-critical tasks to begin with, working their way up to more complex and urgent jobs. I would say that little guidance was initially offered, but I always felt that this was done to give me an opportunity to prove myself and learn independently. In occasions where I was unsure, I always felt that it was okay to ask questions. Once my manager was more aware of my own level of knowledge and ability, they started to provide an appropriate amount of guidance. I feel that this was a good way of doing things.

The amount of work I had to do varied from day to day, and even week to week. It was never too much, although some days were hectic and good organisation was definitely required. I would say the workflow reflected the flexible nature of the internship: if I wasn't busy, which admittedly happened, I could just ask for some people to reach out to and organise meetings with (to learn about other areas of the business) or do some independent research to fill the time usefully. I think that one has to go into an internship understanding that, firstly, summer is always a slower season, and secondly, that part of how an intern can make a good impression is by finding more work to do themselves.

I think I was given a good amount of responsibility: the work was given clearly needed to be done and benefitted the team, though some tasks were more critical than others. Generally the most important/urgent work revolved around helping my team with their tasks. Naturally this meant completing more mundane aspects of the task, but it was clear that the work was overall important. Purely individual tasks were admittedly less important. It is important to note that my individual work was never micromanaged, and so I was entirely responsible for its completion. I also had to complete some tasks fairly urgently, with half an hour or two hour deadlines, and so, even if the tasks themselves were mundane, they felt like a great responsibility.

I have only just finished my internship so it is difficult to comment on this, but I certainly learnt a lot working at M&G. Teamwork/collaboration skills, excel/technology/software skills, organisation and time management, etc. I would say that someone who has never had any work experience would learn a huge amount of basic skills at M&G, while someone with a bit more prior knowledge of the workplace environment would have ample opportunity to hone more specific skills and improve their pre-existing knowledge.

Office atmosphere was great: people worked hard but were always talking, having a good time, and joking around. Almost every day free food would be brought in to share. I would describe the general attitude as friendly, but not overly loud or raucous. Enough to encourage conversation, but not enough to distract from work.

The internship was very well organised: there was an on boarding day during which everything was explained and the interns had the opportunity to ask any questions they wanted to HR, and then following that HR would send fairly frequent reminders and updates in case you had forgotten something key. Several social events were organised, and HR was always available to get in touch with. They also did their best to cope with managers going on holiday or business trips, so that the interns would always be looked after.

This is somewhat difficult to say as I don't really see how the company could have invested in my training, in the sense that I was clearly hired to learn through working as opposed to going on a training course or anything like that. I would argue I developed a lot during the internship, but that the company didn't train me in any formal sense. I was just given work to do, and if it was something I couldn't do I would ask my manager or a team member, who would show me what to do. Overall though I never felt as though the company did not care about my own development, so I was happy with this aspect of the internship.

I can not comment on this as we have not yet reached the deadline for graduate offers to be handed out, but I know that M&G offers grad offers to interns as much as possible. Most of the graduates I worked with had also been interns.

Yes, we would meet up at least once a week after work, although obviously not everyone attended every time. The option was there though, and everyone came out at least a few times. Working hours were 9 to 5, so people who lived further away like myself could stay for a wile, say, from 5-7, before having to head home. If we ate in the canteen at lunch, we would always sit together.

The cost was high because the office is in central London, but we were well paid for the internship so this wasn't necessarily a problem. Admittedly, most of us lived in London or had family there, so some might struggle with accommodation.

As I lived relatively far away from the office I didn't really have time to stay out very late on Thursday nights, what with work being the next morning (and work outings are on Thursdays not Fridays). However, I did go to a lot of nice pubs and restaurants after work with fellow interns and friends. Its central London: the nightlife is good.

There was a compulsory CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) day as part of the internship, and frequent invitations to after-work drinks. What was offered probably depended on the team the interns were working on. My team invited me out to play golf, to a park, and to watch a cricket match. Beyond that us interns were free to plan things as well, which M&G definitely facilitated by paying for our planned HR socials, giving us the opportunity to get to know each other.