Operations Intern Review

I really enjoyed my experience and considering it was organised to be completely virtual for the first time and with only a few months notice, it was incredibly well organised. I felt supported throughout the whole experience both within my team and by the internship coordinator. The events held were both engaging and insightful. The only slight downside was due to the internship being virtual, there were not many opportunities for socialising in smaller groups.

When speaking to Barclays employees at all levels as well as the internship coordinator, we were always treated as a valuable part of the company and reassured that we were all deserving of having a place on the programme. Additionally, when catching up with my line manager to review how much I had progressed with my objectives, I was always made to feel appreciated and that the work I was completing was of value to the team.

At every stage of my internship, I was offered support and encouraged to ask any questions I had by everyone I came into contact with. Before starting the internship we were given a Senior Mentor and a Graduate Buddy to offer guidance and insight from two different perspectives within the company. Then after starting and being introduced to my team, they were always extremely helpful and kept in close contact so I knew they were available whenever I had any queries.

We had training sessions throughout the internship such as introductions to finance and banking, excel training and networking training - all of which will be extremely valuable in my future career. Also the objectives set encouraged us to navigate all areas of the business and take an active role in organising meetings with coworkers and reviewing and enhancing current processes. This provided crucial experience in an office environment and transferable skills in all areas of employment.

Considering the internship was adapted to be completely virtual on a short timeframe as previously mentioned, the internship was almost seamless. It successfully balanced training and other internship sessions alongside time working within our teams so we were always occupied while allowing us to have enough time to complete our objectives. They also took our feedback that we wanted more opportunities to socialise within smaller groups into consideration and organised opportunities later on in the internship.

The atmosphere during the internship was always positive. The sessions were always friendly and engaging, everyone I met was welcoming. Even meeting with directors and other senior members of staff, they were friendly and made the time to get to know us. There was a good mix of formal and informal sessions so we didn't constantly feel like we were being observed and monitored, but all of the events we took part in were useful to us.

We took part in a lot of train modules and had access to many more on the system. It felt that there was a lot of thought put into the training and development. Additionally we were always asked for feedback to improve the sessions and make sure they were as useful to us as possible. We also had many opportunities to meet senior members of staff to ask questions and learn from their experiences throughout their careers and time in the company.

Obviously nothing could completely recreate a normal office environment in these circumstances, and the casual social side of things wasn't there completely. However using the integration of video meeting software with the virtual desktop meant that we did get a lot of interaction still and we were able to work around the problems really well considering. Additionally we spent plenty of time with our teams and were given projects to work on encouraging us to navigate the business on our own.

Between organised networking / speaker events to our objective of meeting with directors, we had numerous opportunities to meet and network with other employees. Although it was nice having a lot organised for us, it was also very beneficial to be encouraged to organise our own meetings with colleagues as it made it made it seem less intimidating to contact senior members of staff as interns. Everyone we connected with was welcoming and always made time for us.

We had a lot of sessions introducing us to working groups, which were very insightful, but because of how short our internship was there wasn't really any opportunities to get involved with them. Additionally, because of the current circumstances quite a few of the groups weren't active and opportunities weren't available. However this is completely understandable. The sessions we had were more to inspire us to stay with the company and encourage us to go for the graduate scheme.