Spring Intern - Group Functions Review

I really enjoyed the insight week, learning a lot more about the roles available that you simply can not get when you are searching for details online. Although, I wouldn't say I was interested by everything, the fact I was able to get the chance to realise this was extremely valuable.

A really high amount. It is clear to see that the company have invested a lot into making sure that you have an insightful time but also representative feel of the company. This could be shown simply through the refreshments and service offered, as well as the level of seniority of the speakers who spoke to us.

A good enough amount. It was easy to ask questions to your programme leaders, though a lot of it is ultimately down to how you would feel working in the company so guidance can only go so much. Support was good, but could perhaps be bettered through more distinct answers and more choice.

During your degree, it makes you realise the importance of guest lecturers and the advice and information you can receive from them just by going to listen to them for an hour. It also encouraged me to get involved, network with peers and take the extra-curricular opportunities that arise when at uni. This will give yourself a much more well-rounded skill set and the best chance to have examples to reflect on that may be similar to those that occur in the workplace.

Really well structured. Being on the functions insight program, we had a senior speaker and a graduate presentation from all seven functions available. It may have been better if these sessions were more spread out, some being on the first day maybe, because all these insight sessions were one after the other for two days. This meant I didn't always have huge amounts of time to reflect on what I'd heard, and got repetitive at points.

Very, very impressed with the atmosphere. Everyone was of course respectful, but it was still easy to be able to have conversations with other people on the programme and graduates/senior speakers who were open to any questions you had for them. At the start, I was expecting it to be more cut-throat in terms of people trying to better each other, but the fact that you were not being assessed until the final day really meant you were in control of how you wanted to get the most out of the experience.

Being there only for a week, the extent to which they could invest was obviously not as large as could be done during a longer summer internship or placement. However, with senior speakers coming and clearly taking time out of their busy roles, as well as being given many chances to network with these senior leaders and graduates, it was clear Barclays did and do invest heavily in personal training and development.

Work shadowing was very useful, being given an hour and a half to see exactly what someone may be doing in a day to day role. However, sometimes it may have been more helpful if speakers mentioned more examples of the work they had done. Of course confidentiality is an issue, but the majority of the time many questions were needed in order identify exactly the kind of things people had been working on.

A good amount, because you were given such exposure to many different roles available within the company and the difference in cultures between them. However, because the functions insight was only in the head offices for 2 days it was somewhat difficult to fully understand this - especially when other insight programs had their whole week within the head office.

Very valuable, because it gave a breadth of understanding within the roles available. It gave me many questions as to whether I would want to work within the financial sector, but maybe if more of the insight sessions gave us example scenarios similar to ones that they had faced then understanding would have been greater.

Lots of opportunities. Within the seven functions, there was a senior speaker and four graduates who you could ask questions to. Some of these people also attended the graduate networking sessions as well as the networking drinks evening so that you could build more of a rapport with them and ask them more specific questions suited to what you really wanted to know.

Good, enabled you to talk to people in current roles that you would perhaps like to be in. It was difficult with the functions programme because there are so many functions you were not always able to get to speak to everyone you wanted to. At the networking evening it was also very difficult because, apart from the interns, people didn't have name tags on them so you couldn't see the current area they were working in. Therefore it was difficult because you had to somewhat hope that the person you were about to speak to was relevant to what you wanted to know

Yes, although I don't think enough emphasis was put on this. It was clear that this happened but it was really only through asking questions that you were able to understand the activities available outside work, even though people would be able to easily ask the kind of things available because they had examples. This was especially clear with the senior speakers, because they only really talked about their role and career rather than any extra activities.

Yes, especially to those wanting to gain a broader insight into the roles available within the financial sector as well as just simply what a bank does. The extent of operations is huge, and without this opportunity it is difficult to understand and see how these fit in with each other and get a true grasp of the multifunctional nature of the business.