Business Development Intern Review

The internship had a good social atmosphere with plenty of opportunities to socialise with the other interns inside the office - as we were all accommodated together this also made socialising outside of office hours easier to coordinate. Work could have been more exciting particularly in some other areas for what I had seen, but my own was fairly interesting after about a month.

After a few slow weeks I was given work which added real value to the team and could see how the work I was doing was contributing to the wider team. It was a pleasant surprise to see that I wasn't just being given work to keep me looking busy.

Support across management for interns was excellent. Weekly one to one sessions with my line manager were incredibly helpful for reviewing my progress in the previous week and focussing efforts for the future weeks. Managers across other teams were also always keen to help out interns and provide overviews of their areas.

The first few weeks work was very sparse and I was frequently bored and without much to do beyond some mandatory training videos which are dull. However, in later weeks the work started to pick up and I was trusted with more responsibilities, and by the second half I had plenty to work on but never overburdened.

Again, I was not given much responsibility within my first few weeks, however in later weeks this improved and I was trusted with doing more important work, which had a real impact. This involved meeting with senior managers to present my work and having opportunities to make suggestions and contribute.

In my team there wasn't a focus on technical skills relating to systems, but this wasn't an issue as there were still opportunities for me to develop more technical skills due to the flexibility available. I also made real strides in improving my soft skills which was a key focus for my manager and has definitely had an impact.

Great general office atmosphere which promoted an effective but informal working culture where people aren't micromanaged or silent constantly. Conversation and breaks are encouraged and really help contribute to a better team spirit which shows in the amount of collaboration between teams and general employee satisfaction in their working environment.

The organisation in the internship was generally good, with good support available for both managers and interns. However, some aspects such as initial security checks were very tedious and frequently complained about by many interns. Also, my induction wasn't until the end of my second week, by which point it was mostly redundant.

The company spent lots of time developing me by providing lots of opportunities for online training, as well as time to go over my personal development goals with my manager in weekly sessions. These really helped develop me, and although training in the first few weeks was slow, it prepared me well.

Personally, I'm not particularly interested in working in the industry, but if I was I would be very tempted to continue working here by progressing onto one of their grad schemes due to the potential for progression within the company,the working environment and the focus on work life balance for employees.

The social scene among the other interns was good with opportunities to network and socialise within work hours not only given but encouraged. And outside of work, as we all lived in the same accommodation block, we quickly got to know each other and had lots of outings in the evenings too.

Cost of living wasn't particularly expensive in terms of groceries and day to day stuff, no more or less than I'd expect in a mid sized city and considerably less than London. This was helped a lot by Lloyds' providing accommodation for interns who were working in a city away from home.

The nightlife is great with plenty of clubs and bars to choose from and go to. There's lots of variety to choose from but the only issue is we're accommodated about 40 minutes outside the centre of town and so it's a bit of a pain to really go out.

Outside of work there were activities for the interns as well as charity work which we were all doing as part of our internship which was great fun to get involved in. There were a few office activities such as a five a side football league which interns could get involved with.