Global Markets Summer Internship Review

Pros: Great work environment. Very friendly and respectful culture. Relatively flat structure and could easily network with senior mangers. Colleagues are very helpful. Interns are quite bright. Cons: Apart from the main desk projects, we need to deal with many side projects too, such as intern presentations. It is good in a way but taking us too much time. Overall, the internship experience is very good, I learn a lot for sure. Highly recommended.

It varies among colleagues. But in general, colleagues in Global Markets are very respectful and helpful. They are willing to spend time to communicate and teach interns like me. I feel that my background and skill sets are valued by my colleagues. Of course, some colleagues especially traders are quite busy but they are still willing to talk when they are less busy.

Each intern is assigned to a mentor and a buddy. My mentor is a senior executive director and he is very knowledgeable. He is willing to spend time talking to me, giving me guidance about the internship, as well as career advice. He is very helpful. My buddy is a VP trader and he would also talk to me and provide useful guidance when he is less busy.

It depends on desks. My 1st rotation was very busy and I was required to do a challenging project. Hence I would need to spend time doing the tasks at my desk. I learned a lot throughout the process. However, my next two rotations were a lot less busy. The manager even encouraged me to network with more people.

Again, it depends on desks. My first desk required me to take more responsibility and ownership to a research project. The results I got were quite useful for their research. My second desk asked me to do some routine work for them, e.g., doing some paperwork, PowerPoint etc. The task is not challenging but perhaps useful to the desk. I did a VBA spreadsheet for a trader and the tool I built was useful for them as well.

Very very useful. For example, I developed my Python programming skill and excel skill throughout the process. I also gained a lot of financial market and products knowledge that could not be attained easily from textbooks. More importantly, I developed my people skills as well, by networking with colleagues of different levels. More importantly, it helps me to understand what I would like to do in the markets.

In general, I think that the trading floor trends to be more intense than investment banking division (IBD) or corp. People on the trading floor are very diverse and dynamic. Colleagues are very professional, respectful and friendly. Overall, I believe that as a Japanese bank, Nomura has a very good working atmosphere.

I think the internship is organised well. We have received some proper training in the first week before rotating in different teams. Also, we had product breakfast sessions allowing us to understand different products Nomura provides. The trading game was fun. However, I have to say I am not a big fan of too many intern side projects. Also the desk projects were not always well organised.

We had the financial markets and excel training in the first week, The training sessions should be useful for some interns as not all interns have the finance or economic backgrounds. Also my colleagues are very helpful and they are willing to teach me. I also received a lot of advice from senior managers as well.

This one is slightly uncleared. HR are not willing the tell us the headcounts or which teams are hiring. We will only know the outcomes (on whether we can get the offers or not) in the very last day of the internship. The performance of Nomura was not that good in the past quarter as well. But I think there are still some entry level opportunities within the firm.

There was a good social scene amongst fellow internship or placement colleagues. My intern colleagues are generally very nice. Although in theory, multiple interns are competing for the same positions. Intern colleagues are still quite friendly and professional. Some intern colleagues would even go out together on Friday night after work or on weekends.

London,, especially central London, is an expensive place to live in indeed. The costs of accommodation, public transport and socialising are higher than many other cities in the UK. Nomura actually provided a small amount of financial to help out the costs of living in London. As for summer accommodations, interns can try some university student accommodations which are cheaper.

Nomura is located in central London, very close to Bank and Monument stations. There are some good pubs nearby. In fact, it is also actually very close to Shoreditch, where you can find a number of good restaurants, pubs, cafes and clubs etc. In my opinion, this area should be a bit better than Canary Wharf.

All the interns at Nomura, not just Global Markets interns, had an intern challenge, where we spent a day raising donation for a charity called Whizz-Kidz. This activity was surprisingly fun. There were some sports friendly games I guess. Apart from that, I am not sure if there were other activities.