Insight Day Review

I had an excellent insight day at M&G Prudential in London. This was my first ever insight day and I learnt a lot that will help me with my future career. I found the event very well structured while not being too serious. It was lead really well and I'm glad I took some time off from university to go to this.

It was really interesting to learn about the culture of the firm and how they differ from your typical financial firm that can be an uncomfortable place to work. Everyone is treated as a person rather than a worker or number. It seems like a friendly place to work and I love how inclusive M&G is.

I didn't really need much guidance as it was one day (insight day) but the instructions were clear and there was a great structure to the day with a timetable given to us among other things. In general I received as much support and guidance as was necessary for the day.

Obviously there were a lot of things I'd heard before, but even if there's only one thing that I learnt there, then it's still worth it! I learnt about how employers are interested in YOU as a person (assuming you can do the job and have the qualifications) so they like to know what else you do outside of work and you must elaborate.

As I said above, the insight day was very well structured and this made the day flow really well. If I could change the structure is maybe start it a bit later as some people (including me) had far to travel so this would give enough time to travel to London.

The atmosphere was great. Everyone was engaging and sociable which was important. I love how you could freely talk about investment because that's what everyone else there wanted to do. It's always nice to meet likeminded individuals and others who are as ambitious as you. There were no bad vibes.

Since it was a one day event there wasn't much they could do in such a short space of time in terms of training. However I made notes of their useful advice and tips. This was mainly to do with how to apply to their summer internship as well as writing a successful application.

I now have a pretty good understanding of how M&G treats it's employees as well as the amazing culture in general. I think it would be very different to working in most other financial firms as they are fairly laid back while still expecting good output and there's no dress code.

Hugely. My answer above would apply here too however I would add one thing. I would be interested to find out how the teams bond as it seems they have really inclusive and friendly culture. Everyone is extremely positive. I didn't meet anyone who didn't want to work there. It seems like they have a great culture.

Whilst I have a few ideas about what to do when I graduate there wasn't much about helping you decide a career. In the first talk about investment management, the question what's the difference between investment banking and investment management could have been answered better with a focus on what an investment banker does rather than an investment Bank.

Reimbursing expenses would have been a bonus in my opinion as I wanted to attend the event anyway. I think they could easily reimburse students for expenses, especially those who have travelled far and paid a lot of money to get there. I guess it gives them an even better reputation.

Yes. There was such an opportunity at lunch to meet employees and talk. I enjoyed this though I was unable to find any actuaries which was a shame. It was a good networking event which I enjoyed. I also would have liked to talked to graduates and interns but didn't get the chance unfortunately.

The speed networking lunch was one of the highlights of the day for me and it went really well. I was able to talk to employees of M&G Prudential from various parts of the firm. There were not really any other social events, though this was not necessary in my opinion.

No, I did not find out about activities that employees can get involved in outside of work. I would be really interested to find out what kind of team building activities M&G does to improve team performance and also boost output and productivity in general. I got the feeling that they are a friendly employer so you have time to do stuff outside of work.

Absolutely - 100%. I would definitely recommend this insight day at M&G Prudential to friends. It taught me a lot about the role of an analyst, mainly within equities. Also, and perhaps more importantly, I learnt a great deal about the firm in general - how they operate, treat employees, their culture.