Summer Associate Review

The company made a real effort to develop an internship that was interesting and informative. I was placed within a Front Office team for the full 6 weeks, helping with ongoing work as well as completing independent projects. These projects included running my own virtual portfolio, presenting a stock review to Investment Managers and producing a weekly report on the performance of the market. The balance was perfect between being kept busy and not being completely swamped with work.

The team were incredibly friendly and seemed genuinely keen to get to know me. As part of the programme we were taken out to lunch every Wednesday by different people in the firm of increasing seniority. For example, in the first couple of weeks it was recent grads, then in the middle junior investment managers and by the final week it was senior partners in the firm. This was a great way to meet different people around the office and get different perspectives of what a career there might be like.

Each Intern was given an Investment Manager who would be the direct point of contact. The open plan office also meant that we were sitting in teams of at least 10 people who were all more than happy to help with anything. Throughout the programme we would also have hour long training sessions with different parts of the business. These ranged from workshops on presenting to clients, to structuring investment reports to the basics of valuing a company. Everyone in the office was incredibly generous with their time and this meant that many of these sessions were taken by senior members of the organisation. For example, our investment report workshop was taken by the investment director who ran the £5bn flagship 'Absolute Return'. I imagine there aren't many places where someone that senior would take a couple hours out of his day to sit down with the summer associates.

On the whole the workload was spot on. We would always have one of our ongoing projects to turn to if the team didn't have much work to give me. The hours were also very sociable. I would aim to be in the office around 8.30am and didn't leave later than 6pm. However, there were times when I had come to the end of a certain project and would be waiting a couple days for the next stage. I think this can be expected with many clients on their summer holidays and I would much rather it that was round then being forced to stay late into the night.

The programme is very happy to recruit interns from a range of degree courses and so we had varying levels of financial knowledge coming in. This meant that the emphasis was much more on us learning about the industry and the company over the 6 weeks. That being said, I was given some responsibility when one of the managers on our team had a £100m proposal for a new client coming up. He asked me to draft most of the 15 page document that would be sent and then went through it all with me before we sent it off in my final week.

The training offered went beyond the basics of the financial markets or the investment management industry. We had sessions on how to effectively structure an argument, important things to consider when presenting and the basics on reading a companies financial statements. The workshops were taken by people who really know what they are talking about and have developed the kind of skills are applicable to most degrees and any workplace.

The office had a really friendly atmosphere. Everyone, no matter how senior, was approachable. It was chatty and social and it was clear people were actually friends outside of work. At the end of our internship the company organised drinks for everyone involved in our programme and we even had speeches by some of the investment managers thanking us for being part of the firm.

It was clear that a lot of work had gone into organising such a comprehensive programme. Upon arrival we were given a booklet that had our schedule over the 6 weeks and even staff photos of who we would be meeting in each session. We would have something (a workshop, an stock review, an introduction to someone in the office) on every day which added some shape to each week.

As mentioned earlier, the firm put real effort into making sure that we were well trained and would organise workshops explaining the basics aspects of the industry and the work we would be doing. It was clear the emphasis for the 6 weeks was us improving our knowledge, rather than a 6 week test of what we already knew.

It was not a given that we would be offered the job at the end of the internship. During the final week we handed in our various ongoing projects and had 2 sets of interviews with partners in the firm. I imagine this was weighted alongside the impression that our direct managers and team members had of us over the 6 weeks.

The were a few different evening events during my time there, including a trip to the Oval to watch Surrey cricket and a sports day in regents park. Friday nights most younger people from the firm would go to the pub round the corner and I would often get taken out to lunch by people on the team.

The office is about a 5 minute walk from Victoria station so drinks and food are central London prices (around £5 for a pint). That being said, the internship did pay well and so it was affordable to go for a few drinks after work or the odd lunch / dinner out.

Some really nice pubs around the office with good beer gardens. The location is also great to go for a wander over lunch - less than a 10 min walk to Green park and Buckingham Palace - or travel into work. Went for drinks with other team members a lot but only went out properly on the week.

The office has their own sports teams which are easy to get involved in if you work there full time, obviously teams were already in place when we arrived but there was the odd email asking if anyone wanted to fill in an absence. There were exercise classes as well you could join - yoga and pilates etc.