GM Summer Analyst Review

The internship was very enjoyable - the opportunity to collaborate with interns on different desks in group projects made the work quite social and interactive. This then prompted us to reach out to other desks for advice or help and so learn about a variety of different products and roles. The first week of the internship was training by an external company, iBank, and this was also very enjoyable and overall useful to the internship experience.

I felt very valued by the other interns, and took a very active part in the group projects. This was due to the similar skill level we had, and previous social interaction. Whilst my desk (i.e. those hired by the firm already) was very pleasant to me, it was difficult to provide them much help. The remote-ness of the internship inevitably added difficulty to properly integrating with the team, and nearly all interactions were strictly work-related.

My manager and others at my desk were always willing to provide help and answers to my questions, as well as guide me through my desk project. During the final week (when there was no group project) my buddy would start each morning asking me about something specific in the market/trading and would talk me through the reasoning of it. This was very helpful and provided a good way of learning about different market trends.

The internship kept me very busy - there was always something to do or learn. We were added to the email lists of various research departments, meaning that there were many useful and interesting market updates we could read. The group projects occupied a lot of time, and if we had some free time, we were encouraged to talk to our desk buddy who would set us reading or smaller tasks. I worked between 10 and 14 hours a day, due to the intership being virtual and so the ability to work at any hours.

Due to the nature of the desk I was on (flow trading) I was not given much responsibility. The desk project I was set involved developing some working spreadsheets, which I hope will be useful to them, but due to lack of specific product knowledge and the busyness of the employees' schedules there was little I could do to help without them taking a significant amount of time to explain something. This was different for other desks, however, as some of my fellow interns compiled data etc which was usefull to their teams.

My degree is in an unrelated area to finance, and I will be starting a masters in September. However, the research skills I've acquired over the internship will undoubtedly help me in this, as the internship was very research-heavy, and focussed on sorting, collecting, understanding, collating and presenting some high-level information in time-pressured conditions. In the future, I am aiming to pursue a job in Global Markets, and if I am lucky enough to do so, then my experience here would be invaluable.

The internship was well organised. It was previously intended to be 10 weeks long, in the London offices, however the company adapted to the changing situations and rewrote the program to be 5 weeks long as work-from-home. Virtual desktops were set up on all of our computers, and we were given access to Bloomberg, Nomura intranet, Symphony, Webex, and Outlook. The structure was very clear from the outset - with one week training, three weeks of group projects, then a final week for an individual desk project.

The company invested very much - iBank was hired as an external trainer to run the first week of the intership, and then provide coaching sessions for our group projects twice a week. We were all set up with Bloomberg and a training session was run for this. In the last few weeks, a Python course was also set up for us. As well as this, the time taken by the employees on the desks and in HR to organise and schedule events, set projects, and provide feedback is truly commendable.

At some point in the summer, the interns will be notified if they're offered a graduate role at Nomura. This would be very appealing - HR are very pleasant and helpful, internships have been generally well organised and useful, the desk structure is familiar, and the company attitude and ethos are in-line with my own. The internship has further solidified my view that Nomura is a company I would be more than happy to work for in the future.

Yes! Despite the internship being virtual/ remote/ work from home, HR attempted to incorporate social events into the schedule, just as in an in-office internship. I appreciate it was difficult to do, but we had a few 'Zoom socials' where we were placed into breakout rooms with other interns from GM, IB and Technology. Setting us up with WebEx accounts also facilitated social interaction, as we could video-call to work on group projects together, rather than just email. At Nomura in general, it is difficult to judge from this internship what the social scene is like.