Intern Review

I really enjoyed my time as an intern at the Financial Conduct Authority. I have been given a lot of responsibility over the 10 weeks that I have worked but with a good support network from my team and the recruiting team. I have liked the varied types of work that I have been doing and the flexibility of the internship programme to allow you to work within other teams and/or departments.

I have felt extremely welcomed by my team, they have been very supportive in all of the work that I have been doing but also helping me to settle into the working environment in general. There are regular opportunities to network with people across the division and everyone is always happy to talk to you regardless of how important and busy they are. Furthermore, the other interns on the programme have been extremely helpful and friendly, the induction days at the start of the programme ensured that we could all stay in contact.

Support and guidance was always given when it was asked for but otherwise, my team left me to get on with it which I liked. For each task I was given, there was a dedicated person to talk to about it if I needed to. Asking for help was very easy as everyone is so friendly.

At the beginning of the internship, work was quite slow, although I think this was more to do with the move to the new (lovely) building in Stratford. From the second week, I was given more work and responsibility. Occasionally, the work would come in waves depending on certain deadlines for the different teams I was working in, when deadlines overlapped, I would be very busy.

Depending on the projects which I was working on, I was given a range of responsibility. There were a couple of projects which I have taken the lead on which was very interesting and good for my personal and professional development. Other projects I worked on were part of larger reports and so I wasn't given much responsibility in these overall, but the parts which I helped with, I was given complete responsibility of. This was good as it gave me a good experience of writing on professional reports. I think the balance of this was perfect.

I have developed many skills in my time on the internship, some of the main skills which I have developed include confidence, improving my speaking and presentations, using excel spreadsheet and reporting skills as well as impact training with KAPLAN which was very interesting and helped me tot understand how we should work with a variety of other people. Most of the work I have done doesnt apply to my degree (my degree is not in a financial/economic subject) but overall, the skills that I have developed would definitely help me in any workplace in the future.

The general atmosphere in the office is very friendly and relaxed. The open working environment means that you can get to know everyone. Everyone is always supportive. There are cakes and sweets every Tuesday in my department where everyone meets in the afternoon to have an energy boost and a chat.

The placement was extremely well organised with many opportunities to work with different people and learn new things. The induction was 2.5 days and really helped for the interns to get to know each other and get to know how the FCA works. There were regular check in points with the recruitment team for example the Social Corporate Responsibility day and regular team and manager meetings (mid-internship and final internship review)

There were many opportunities to talk to different people within my team and across the FCA- all you have to do is ask!

The graduate scheme is an extremely good job opportunity and has impressive opportunities to progress up through the organisation. The starting salary is very good and having the FCA on your CV allows progression into many other big companies.

There was an extremely good social scene between other employees such as interns going for drinks quite often. As well as this, there are regular social drinks between people across the department as well as many informal team building exercises such as quiz nights, departmental away days and escape rooms.

The socialising in London is relatively expensive but being in Stratford Olympic park, there is a lot of choice in places to go in Westfield shopping centre with food choices of various prices. Living in London is expensive but there are good train lines out of London into near by commuter towns which are far cheaper, including season ticket prices.

Around Stratford, the nightlife was good and the shopping centre is open until late so is is relatively busy in the evenings with people out for drinks or food after work. The general atmosphere is friendly and allows for social drinks after work- the internship group particularly took to going to Cafe Football for drinks after work to catch up on what we had all been doing.

There are so many activities that you can get involved in outside of normal work activities. I would highly recommend getting involved in sports clubs or other networks which involve social events. They are extremely good for networking and are very inclusive. The CSR day made sure that we had time out of work to go and help in the community and this was very rewarding.