HSBC CMB Intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my internship as there was a variety of work and extracurricular activities to get involved in as well as opportunities to network with colleagues in a range of sectors. I liked being left to organise my own schedule and I was trusted by my team so no one was "checking up" on me.

Everyone in my team was very welcoming and helped me with any questions I had through out the eight weeks. I felt confident to ask any of them for help and they always made time for me. I thought that working here meant you would have to have your head down and not talking to people but it has been lovely to chat and get to know my team on a personal level as well as professionally.

I had two managers. One gave me a lot of support and guidance, we organised meetings to go through work and discuss improvements to be made and he gave me a lot of help and advice. They helped me with my placement work as well as extracurricular work which was great. My other manager wanted me to challenge myself more so gave me a lot less guidance and wanted to see how I interpreted the projects before I got influenced by usual procedures. Very different but I learnt a lot from both.

I was pretty busy (as I like to be) but this is because I set up a lot of my own meetings with people and got involved in extra curriculars, if I had not done this then it would probably be a different story. I think you need to plan what you want to get out of the internship and be proactive in accomplishing just that.

I was given a lot of responsibility to manage my time but I was not given responsibility regards work, which is understandable as at such a junior level I would not have been able to accomplish much of the work without support from colleagues. I enjoyed being able to organise my daily schedule as I pleased and meet people who I thought would be valuable and I would learn a lot from.

I have leant a lot whilst being here, work skills and inter personal skills, both of which will help me at university and future jobs. I have learnt what it is like to be in a corporate office, how to interact with senior colleagues, what expectations people have of new joiners and how to network with a huge variety of people.

It is a relaxed office, a lot less corporate feeling than I expected. People are very friendly and happy to talk to you about their roles and career journeys. On Fridays it is very quiet as a lot of people work from home and it is more casual in the office.

It seems to me that there was no communication between the internship team and my placement team. I thoroughly enjoyed the activities the internship team set up as I learnt a lot from the development days and the charity days. On my work placement however I don't think there was any plan until I arrived.

I feel like the firm has invested in me quite a lot. I have been involved in development days, resilience days and corporate sustainability responsibility days which have all taught me valuable skills that you would not learn in the office. It has been great fun to network with new people from a variety of backgrounds at these events.

At the moment I need to reflect on my time here and then I will come to a decision. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here however, I do not like to limit myself and I think it is important to explore a wide range of opportunities whilst you are young and it is easier to do so.

There was a great social scene amongst fellow placement students! As there are quite a lot of us in the office we all meet up for lunch, go to the pub after work, meet up on weekends and go on nights out. I think this depends on what office you are based at and who you are as a person because there are definitely some people who didn't get involved.

There are definitely a range of cheap and expensive places, you just need to find a group of colleagues who want the same thing as you. Some groups go to more expensive places however I've had great fun on my internship and the cost of socialising has not been excessive. I guess it all depends on where you are from!

I have really enjoyed the nightlife in the area of the office. Being in the city centre has made it much easier plus there are great train links. There is a lot going on all the time, in the evenings and weekends, so you won't run out of ways to keep yourself busy!

Yes there is loads! There is lots of committees that organise events to get involved in either organising or attending. There are multiple charity and community days and events. There are learning and self development days which you can sign up to and there are also sports clubs which you can attend.