Operations Intern Review

I have enjoyed it immensely. Although I was working within the operations department, the actual structure of the internship was based on more consultancy-based work, where I had to review the current processes within the business and find ways of driving sustainable changes to the business that brought actual business value. In addition, both stakeholders from my team and from the company were extremely helpful, and everyone was more than happy to have a chat. I found it unique that I was literally able to give a call to a secretary of senior directors, from Investment Banking through Private Banking to Barclays Execution, and set 1 to 1 session with them and find out more about their work, Barclays and career progression, and I even managed to add several of them to my LinkedIn account, including directors based in New York.

Within my close team, everyone valued the contribution I was doing and I was always able to grab people for quick 30-60 minutes sessions where I could ask them for advice or for explaining me some of the things we were working on. In addition, they were always nice to me and very supportive, what made me feel really confident during my time at Barclays.

The managers and supervisors are extremely supportive in their feedback sessions and they are always happy to support you whatever you are doing. Although I do not know if I will want to work in the future within this particular department, my manager continued to support me extensively in making the best of my time here and supported me in making my potential applications to other business areas stronger although that was not his area of responsibility. In addition, my manager always supported me in terms of the matters outside of works, such as my accommodation (he asked me if I need any help in finding it et cetera) and also in terms of things to do outside of work (recommended restaurants et cetera).

The amount of responsibility I was given was perfectly balanced, as I was managing the amount of workload I was dealing with myself. As part of the internship, I have involved myself in a plenitude of online trainings, in many 1 to 1 networking sessions with people from any area in the bank, and at the same time I could add more responsibilities to my analysis anytime I wanted.

During my work, I was reviewing the internal processes within the company and streamlining them, with a presentation to senior stakeholders at the end of the internship. The actual projects I worked on were very impactful to the business, with potential thousands of pounds and hundreds of hours saved as a result of that.

During my time here, I have developed massively and I can say with confidence that the internship prepares you really well for a career within the financial services industry. I have extremely developed my people skills, as a result of the great quantity of the networking sessions I have attended. I have build a great knowledge of the financial services industry, starting from understanding the actual processes and how they emerge and ending on learning stock evaluation methods.

The atmosphere within the office was really good, with many people being always happy to talk to one another and people having giggles during lunches and free moments all the time. Simultaneously, as in the financial services industry, the atmosphere was very professional and we were required to wear suits 4 days a week (with Friday being the dress-down day).

Company has invested significant amount of money and time into the interns, and it was emphasised on several occasions that interns and graduates are a key talent for the organisation. The biggest difference I can see myself is about confidence and networking, which are crucial regardless of the career field one would like to pursue.

After my internship, my expectations were exceeded and I can say that Barclays is an amazing company to work for. Barclays offer great mobility for its employees, great atmosphere and accepts everyone to be themselves what I found particularly encouraging. In addition, the mobility does not only involves jobs but locations as well, and international travel is encouraged including travel between the continents, what is truly incredible!

My internship was based in Glasgow therefore in comparison to London and England I can say that the costs were relatively cheap, with 50-60% lower prices on some drinks in comparison to London. Equally, food prices and lunch places were very cheap as well, thus encouraging interns to go for lunches together frequently.

Glasgow as a large city offer a great amount of nightlife, what combined with great prices makes it a very attractive place to work from nightlife perspective. There are many clubs, music venues with underground artists and theatres, not to mention many events that are happening all the time in both Glasgow and Edinburgh. Altogether, I can say with confidence that nightlife in Glasgow is excellent!