IB COO Summer Intern Review

Really enjoyed the internship, especially meeting people within the company who have very different jobs. Everyone was really welcoming and I have learnt a lot during my time here. The work was challenging but was also very useful in developing knowledge on a certain subject area and developing soft skills.

I felt very valued by my colleagues. The work given to me wasn't just given for the sake of having a task for me, but rather work that was actually required to be done. They were always helpful if you had further questions and they always provided further points of development which showed they could trust you to carry out certain tasks.

My manager was extremely supportive. They took a genuine interest in me and suggested alternative roles in the bank that I might be interested in/more suited to, to ensure I knew what options were available to me. If I had any questions on the work I was given, they always made time to go through them.

I would say at first it was a slow start, but I suspect this was done with the intention of allowing us to get used to the environment. But since then, my weeks have been very busy since I had multiple projects running in parallel, and then also several meetings with people to find out more about their roles.

I would say I was given quite a large amount of responsibility given that other people in the firm depended on me to get my work done so that they could do theirs. Also, one of the projects that I have worked on will be implemented in the future to increase efficiency.

I think this internship has helped me a lot with developing my soft skills and also learning how to use Microsoft excel. However, these won't necessarily help me with my degree given that I do engineering, but in terms of my career I think these are definitely key skills to have gained.

At first I was sat in a quiet area of the office, but everyone was really approachable. I then moved further into the trading floor so it was a bit noisier but I was also surrounded by more people which I enjoyed. Generally, people seemed quite busy but would take the time to stop and talk to you.

We were meant to have a one week rotation with another team during our time here but this was done towards the end of the internship which wasn't ideal in terms of the timing for our projects. It seemed the organisation of this was quite last minute. Also, there weren't many events held for all interns after the training week which was a shame.

I think the company invested quite a bit in terms of personal training and development as our first week was dedicated to this where we learnt some finance technical terms, how to use Microsoft excel and how to behave in a business environment. They also had speaker sessions throughout our time here to learn more about different departments, and teach us about developing certain skills.

I think future employment prospects within the organisation are quite appealing as internal mobility is quite large and line managers are meant to aid you with finding the best role for you. I would say that I am still a bit unclear on how to get promoted and the differences between different ranks.

The social scene had to mainly be organised by the interns themselves given that the company did not arrange social events for us past our training week, apart from the day before our last. This was also difficult to organise amongst the interns given that people finished at different times.

My family lives in London so I was able to live in my family home during the internship. I grew up here so a lot of my friends were already here and therefore the social aspect has been great. I have very much enjoyed being in London during my time here.

I didn't go out much during the summer because I was quite tired after work. Weekdays I rarely went out and on weekends I met up with friends during the day. Given that I have grown up in London, I have already experienced the nightlife here and I know I can experience it at other times so this wasn't really a priority to me during my time here.

I think there were more opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work at the start of the internship but I think these weren't as prevalent during August given that quite a few employees left for their holidays. A lot of stuff has been arranged for September when summer interns won't be there anymore.