Operations Analyst Review

I really enjoyed my time at Barclays - the values of the company are present in all of it's practices and employees. It was not what I expected walking into the first week, but I have begun to gain skills that I didn't realize were important for a banking career.

Everyone I met was extremely nice and very accommodating. I was involved in the daily and weekly activities of my team from week 1. My colleagues were treating me as a member of the team by involving me in all email trails, different kinds of meetings and after work drinks and socials.

My line manager organized daily catch ups with me and was extremely approachable. He allowed me to support him on his tasks whilst encouraging me to reach out to others to gain experience elsewhere in the department. I could email him at any point during the day and he would always try and find time to get back to me.

I got busier as the internship progressed, generally working hours like 8.30-4 with a half an hour lunch break.

I was given ownership of collating certain reports and updates which involved chasing people down and collating them into different formats independently. On the other hand, I was given opportunities to shadow other people in the team and in the wider depertment. Apart from that, I took initiative to start separate projects such as entering an internship wide competition.

The project management skills I acquired will greatly assist me in the final year of degree when I have to complete my dissertation. But more importantly, the professional experience and development of stakeholder management skills will be invaluable in my future career. I have also built connections which will help me in the future.

I was based in a different office to the rest of my team which wasn't great. I got to know the people where I sat but they weren't working with me. When I did go and visit the other office where my team was based, it was much more friendly.

Initially, I don't think the internship was well organized. We were told our induction would be in London but then it ended up being elsewhere. I was meant to have a buddy and a mentor throughout the duration of my time at Barclays. However, at the time of writing (midway through), I still don't have either. They also struggled to set us up on laptops and at the time of writing, I haven't received one to work on yet.

Barclays did organize a couple of training days including the Micro-Tyco training method which I found really inspiring. We also received a talk in financial markets and the generalized structure of the bank which was extremely useful. We have a speaker series coming up which should hopefully be insightful too.

If you do well in your performance reviews, there is the opportunity of being offered a place on the graduate scheme for the following year. If not, you can reapply and the experience with Barclays will stand you in good stead. After completion of the grad scheme, you roll out into quite high level roles which is good.

No there wasn't - we were spread across Manchester with only 5 interns in my building. Nothing was organized from Barclays side of things but some of us tried to organize after work drinks for the interns. We struggled to do this though as people were spread out in different locations.

Cost of living was average. Drinking in the city centre can get quite expensive but you can make use of happy hours and food deals. I am also a student in Manchester so I knew the cheaper places to eat, drink and meet beforehand. Don't be afraid to travel further out of the city centre, the transport links are good.

Nightlife in Manchester is great. There are a plethora of clubs to choose from and also some great bars and pubs with differing price ranges. Try and get to know people who know Manchester well in order to get the best out of it, but there are a lot of Wetherspoons too!

I tried to join the Win network (women's network), with the intention of getting involved with some of the events. However, there were next to no events planned for the next couple of months. I know that my team in Liverpool organized office football but I couldn't get involved as I wasn't based there.