Summer Intern Review

Given the current situation and having to work from home, HR made every effort to make the virtual internship the best they could. I enjoyed the team I was on who were all very welcoming and open to having virtual chats with me. I was always in constant contact with people which I originally though would be difficult with WFH. This provided great exposure which has really helped me understand the business and finance better.

The team were super welcoming from the start and no one ever made me feel like I was in their way or wasting their time! The people I was working with were very supportive and invested lots of time in me and my development. For example, one colleague spent hours teaching me excel which was not a requirement for him. It went above and beyond my expectations and made me feel like I was valued by the team.

My line manager and senior manager as well as the team Director were all very supportive and helpful on my learning journey. I went in knowing very little about what they do but came away understanding a lot more than I was expecting. I had a presentation to do for the whole team and my manager was very helpful letting me practise with him and giving feedback. I really could not have asked for more.

The first few weeks were slow to get started due to tech issues which was to be expected. After that however, the pace quickly picked up and I had lots to get on with. We had personal projects, individual and group presentations alongside multiple Speaker Series and other talks for the interns. There were also workshops, excel lessons and financial markets training sessions which were hugely helpful. Given it was WFH, they still managed to keep us busy enough.

Given it was WFH, there was not as much work to be done- learning and networking took up the majority of our time. Having said that, I was responsible for doing the daily economic update for the wider team which also went to very senior employees such as the CFO of the commercial bank. Besides that, I feel there could have been more responsibility given although it was understandably difficult because we weren't in the office.

This experience definitely provided a lot of useful exposure and general knowledge of the day to day undertakings of a bank. Particularly the soft skills and interpersonal skills I learnt are very transferrable and I will take with me on my career journey. The financial markets training and excel lessons I found the most useful especially as the presenter was a very good teacher. I've certainly learnt a lot in my six weeks and it has been an unparalleled experience.

We were not in office at all as it was during lockdown. Everyone was working from home but there was still a good supportive and cooperative atmosphere in the virtual office. My team had regular breakfasts and socials together over video call. Most enjoyed working form home and felt it has been hugely successful. Going forward, most people would prefer to work from home 2-3 days a week which will having an interesting impact on the office atmosphere.

I felt it was very well organised given the circumstances and we had many of the opportunities we would have had in the office. The speaker series was interesting and varied and there were plenty of them as well. The training sessions were highly insightful and well organised as well. I thought the length of the internships, 6 weeks shortened from 9 weeks, was a good length of time fro the amount we had on.

I felt there were plenty of training sessions which were both well organized and useful. There were financial markets training on e.g. debt and equity markets, derivatives etc. The presenter was a great a teacher and very engaging. There was also a session on understanding Barclays and the different areas of the bank. Additionally, there was a series of excel lessons that were of a good level of complexity. On top of this my manager invested a lot of time in teaching about what they do.

There are good opportunities fro interns to progress onto the graduate scheme. They say they do not over hire for the internship so it is not overly competitive to get a graduate role. Within the organisation there seems to be many opportunities for progression and also a lot of mobility within the bank. Many people I spoke to have worked in a range of different areas of the bank and have good opportunities for promotion.