Operations Analyst Review

Enjoyed my internship immensely. Lived in a great city and was in a great location. Team work can be difficult as there are just rows of desks with people focused upon their own work. Everyone is willing to talk, however, and networking is encouraged within the company to maximise the experience.

Colleagues made me feel extremely welcome and gave me real work with consequences to oversee. Team regularly held team events and social activities even in the short stint that I was working here. Co-operation was encouraged and the social events helped promote a friendly and welcoming environment to work in.

I had weekly sessions with my supervisor to determine how I was getting on with my objectives and for me to raise any issues I had. When asking for more work I was shown different areas of teams and was also given responsibility for these teams. I recommend setting up weekly meetings to further your growth, and ask how you can meet and exceed your expectations.

I had daily tasks that I had to attend and as the weeks progressed I slowly picked up other daily tasks from other team areas. Some of these tasks could be completed very quickly. Most days you will leave by at least 5pm, however, when there are certain busy days the tasks can add up.

The daily tasks I was assigned were crucial to the operation of the team and the jobs for other colleagues. These tasks could be completed quickly, however, so I am sure another colleague would have been able to pick these up instead of me. The scale of responsibility of these, regardless of this, were great.

The sources available to you can greatly increase your knowledge should you choose to seek it out. There is a multitude of financial market training that you can access. Upon completing some of these I feel I have greatly developed my understanding of asset management which would help my career in the future.

A lot of people were focused in on their own work which had little overlap with other colleagues. Desk environment is that like a call centre with rows of desks. If you, however, network and push yourself out there to talk to people you will find that everyone will make time for a chat.

There were objectives given to me to complete during the internship aside from regular internship events. These included seminars, financial training, and speaker events. Aside from technical issues and a lack of access to some of the systems which prevented me from doing my work, the internship was ran very well.

The company set up training events to develop your abilities and invest in you for the future. The impact of these events, however, was very minimal and efforts would have been better spent elsewhere. Even in Operations, more detailed training on financial modelling and markets would have helped me greatly.

The company is expanding and investing in new buildings hoping to double their employee numbers. They are also looking to recruit more and more graduates so the internship is a great way to go about securing one of these places. The number of graduate roles arising from internships is also rising.

Colleagues provided good social events and interns also were outgoing and friendly. Internship did not provide any social events for the interns during my stay, however. Can be difficult to network with other interns as you can be sat on your own team not near any others, depending on your role.

Glasgow is quite cheap compared to other cities of similar size. Living and socialising will be much cheaper than London, however, there is also less to do here in terms of activities. Living in the nicer areas of Glasgow can be quite expensive as can in any other large city.

The nightlife is good in the area I worked at. It is in the centre of the city with lots of bars, pubs and clubs around. It has been easy to find a new and exciting place to go out every week after work. The nightlife experience seemed pretty standard to every other city I have been to.

There were lots of opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work, however, only if you go seeking for them. My line manager showed me many activities from seminars to volunteering which could all be taken outside of working hours. Barclays is a good employer for finding relevant events outside normal working hours.