Sourcing Finance Analyst Review

Overall, I enjoyed my placement. There were times when I felt I could have done with a bit more guidance and initially I was not given very many tasks so I struggled to find things to fill my time. However as the internship progressed, I was given more work and felt more comfortable within my team and so the placement became much more enjoyable for me.

Although I was not given a huge amount of work to begin with, for very task I did complete my colleagues gave me good feedback and I felt like my work was valued. The work I completed was used by my colleagues and I could clearly see the outcomes of what I was working on. I always felt appreciated and valued by my team.

My manager was always very helpful when I asked and was great at finding me opportunities to enhance my internship. However, the support offered my Emerging Talent was not great as I would often contact the group and not receive a reply for a week. There were times when I would have liked to talk to someone about how my placement was progressing, but I had no contact for this.

Initially, I was not very busy and really would have liked more work to complete. As the internship progressed, my workload increased and at the end I felt much happier. Since we had the charity challenge to complete, I was able to find activities to fill my time and spent a lot of my time fundraising which I really enjoyed. However, from a work experience perspective, it would have been better to have had more working tasks to complete and spend less time fundraising.

I was given a fair amount of responsibility, but my work was always checked by someone in my team or another colleague, so I always felt assured that if I did make a mistake it would be okay. I was happy with the amount of responsibility and felt that I was trusted to do what I had been asked.

I felt that the skills learnt were only useful for the specific job I was doing and were not necessarily transferable to my degree studies (mathematics). They might be useful for future work in finance, but would only really be used in a very specific situation. The mandatory training we received would be useful for any future work in a bank.

The general atmosphere was great - the office was very relaxed and my team had a great relationship with each other and the other colleagues within the office. I was very happy in my team as they were all very supportive and helpful throughout my internship and I formed great relationships with the other interns too.

The internship set up was not great - I did not feel that I was given enough work and I do not think my team really needed me there. The organisation of the internship was awful - the employment agencies used were not at all helpful and the vetting process was incredibly difficult.

The training received was okay and I feel that I have developed over the course of the internship. The company has invested in its interns and scholars and I have been given several opportunities as a result, however I feel the support given was not great and so the investment did not seem particularly genuine.

The graduate schemes are quite appealing, although I have not been given much information about them. Other routes into the company were not made very clear but I think there are many jobs within the LBG that I could get involved in. Many seemed appealing to me and I would like to find out more.

Within the interns, the social scene was good as we all lived in student halls which were very sociable. I got on with my flatmates which was great. The interns would often meet for lunch at the offices and overall the social scene was good. Within colleagues, the social scene could have been better, but I know lots had families/other commitments.

Unfortunately, the accommodation was quite far out of town, so time and money spent commuting to work was very high. It would have been much better to live closer to the offices (like the interns did in previous years) so we could be within walking distance, rather than having to commute on the bus every day.

The nightlife was good within Bristol, however again we were far out of town which made it difficult to get involved. It would have been much nicer to live in town so we could enjoy the nightlife more and not have to worry about safely catching buses home late at night.

There were many events taking place in Bristol over the internship - Harbour festival, carnivals and the balloon fiesta to name a few. I enjoyed going to these and would recommend that any intern in Bristol over the summer does the same. The only downside was that we were so far away form town.