Wealth and Investments Summer Intern Review
by Barclays
This review was submitted over 4 years ago, so some of the information it contains may no longer be relevant.
Rating
-
The Role
2.2
-
The Company
1.8
-
The Culture
2.3
- 1. To what extent did you enjoy your work placement or internship?
- 2. To what extent did you feel valued by your colleagues?
- 3. To what extent were you given support and guidance by management/your supervisor(s)?
- 4. How busy were you on a daily basis?
- 5. How much responsibility were you given during your placement?
- 6. To what extent did/will the skills you developed, and training you received, assist you in your degree studies and beyond?
- 7. What was the general atmosphere in your office?
- 8. How well organised was the overall work placement or internship set up?
- 9. In terms of personal training and development, to what extent did the company or firm invest in you?
- 10. What were the perks on your work placement?
- 11. How appealing are future employment prospects within the organisation?
- 12. Was there a good social scene amongst any fellow placement students/colleagues?
- 13. What was the cost of living and socialising in the area you worked in?
- 14. What was the Nightlife like in the area you worked?
- 15. Were there many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work?
The Role
Felt entirely cheated - applied for "Wealth and Investments" summer internship, but did not apply nor learn any investment knowledge. I didn't give too low a score because there were some interesting projects to work on.
Colleagues were friendly - product managers were willing to take time to explain their work, and some of them gradually gave me some real work to support them.
Some support - relied on proactivity and occasional catchup with line-manager.
Not really busy - objectives were fairly straight-forward. Had a lot of time to network within Barclays Wealth and speak to investment professionals.
Some interesting responsibilities - creating the presentation deck for a product manager to train new wealth management executives. Biggest project was to prepare a training manual and present to my fellow interns, line manager and a senior product manager
No training, relied on my proactivity to learn from product managers, some skills learnt but not relevant to an investment career.
The Company
Clear objectives set for the internship - clear arrangements to meet Directors and MDs from other businesses in the whole of Barclays.
None for this internship, and probably none in the future if the company is not even willing to fund for your full CFA.
HR made it clear that CFA level 2 and 3 have to be funded by yourself. Firm will only fund your qualifications up to the 'minimum' required qualification. Says a lot about how much the firm will invest in you - I may be narrow-minded and I can afford the full CFA myself, but it is up to you to interpret this fact. Grad program is 2.5 years (much longer than other grad schemes). Rotations don't train you to become a competent investor if you are unlucky in your rotations - there will be 4 rotations, 1 of which has to be outside Wealth (Retail Bank, Corporate Bank, Barclaycard). Even within the 3 rotations in Wealth, that is subject to availability of roles. If you are lucky, you might get ONE rotation in investment-related stuff. If you are unlucky, the 3 rotations in Wealth are all unrelated to investments and you will be sorely disappointed. Whats worse is that after all the rotations (which is almost 3 years), you still have to apply for a permanent role and compete with other graduates. If you don't get the desired permanent role, you essentially have wasted 3 years of your career life, and when you try to apply elsewhere for your dream investment role, you are not very employable because you have rotated in such broad areas and specialise in none. The grad scheme is literally set up for you to fail.
The Culture
Friday drinks
Canary Wharf
Not really involved, but im sure there are stuff to do at night
Details
Internship (1 Month+)
London
August 2018
