Summer Insight Week Intern Review

Overall, it was a great experience to get to meet the firm and network with a range of employees from different seniority levels. I really enjoyed having the chance to speak to so many people from the firm as well as the other interns, who were always very supportive and encouraging. Learning about all of the initiatives outside of work you can get involved with was highly interesting to me and showed me what life would be like there.

Even though we were at the firm for such a short amount of time (just 1 week), I felt very valued by everyone at the firm that I had the pleasure of interacting with. They all put in a lot of time and effort to make me feel like a valued player, and people were so encouraging for us to ask questions - they often said that no question was a silly question, which was reassuring!

I was blown away by the amount of guidance and support I received over the insight week - we had daily question and answer sessions with 2 of the team leaders, so that we had the opportunity to ask more general questions that were not specific to sessions during the day. The HR organiser was absolutely amazing and would always make sure we were happy - she was incredibly friendly and approachable throughout the insight week!

My degree is not directly related to the work done by Bloomberg, but I learned that there are loads of transferable skills that would be applicable to a job at the firm. I also developed my skills such as teamwork and presentation, as we had the chance to do a group presentation on a topic we could choose out of a selection of very interesting and diverse topics. In this respect, the insight week gave me a lot of development points!

The insight week was very well structured, and completely surpassed my expectations (I can imagine it must have been hard to organise with the current virtual environment!). We had various sessions throughout the day to learn about different teams and products in the firm, as well as sessions where we could interact with each other and meet people currently on their summer internships so we could learn about Bloomberg from them as well as through the sessions.

Overall, the atmosphere was jovial and there was absolutely no pressure. The exercises we had were more to check our own understanding of the different areas of the business, rather than to formally rank us, which I really appreciated as it meant I could focus better. The organisers always had a smile on their faces and would often tell jokes at times, which made everything very open and friendly! The fellow interns were also super friendly.

The firm invested a lot in terms of personal training and development, especially given it was just a 1 week programme. The group project gave us the chance to independently develop a lot of skills related to research and teamwork. We also had access to the Bloomberg Terminal, so we could really develop our understanding of what the different functions are and how the product works, which was a valuable tool to be able to have!

The insight programme gave me a really holistic idea of what it would be like to work at the company - this is because we had the chance to speak with so many people, and have talks and panel discussions from more senior people as well. Hearing about their experiences gave me an insight into what I would envisage my future career path with the firm to look like, so overall I left with a good understanding!

I gained a really good idea of the company culture, especially related to the Bloomberg Philanthropies side. I also learned about the various network groups you can join as part of the diversity and inclusion initiatives, so the culture seems very open and inclusive! The company definitely pays a lot of attention to cultivating a great company culture, and meeting all the employees definitely confirmed my view that Bloomberg genuinely has a wonderful company culture.

The content was very helpful in allowing me to decide where I would like to work in the future. I learned about all the different career paths you can take within the company, i.e. by joining Analytics, you can then specialise in Analytics or you can join the Sales department after learning about the products through Analytics. We also learned about the Global Data side you can join, so it seems like there are loads of options!

We were not formally paid for the Bloomberg insight week experience, which is unsurprising given the length of the programme. However, if it went ahead in person, we would have received food vouchers per day and I believe our travel would have been reimbursed. As the internship was virtual, we did not need this, however we did receive a 30 pound amazon gift voucher as a gift for participating in the week (but no formal salary).

We were lucky enough to meet senior people in the firm through talks and current summer interns through an intern mixer session (where they gave us valuable advice on how to convert the insight week to a summer internship). However, there was not really an opportunity to have 1 on 1 conversations with employees, but I understand that given the time constraints and virtual aspect this may have been more difficult. It would have been valuable though!

Surprisingly, the social networking opportunities were great! I did not think we would have much of a chance to meet peers in just a short week, but through the intern mixer, games night, and project work sessions, I got to meet so many people, so I was very impressed by how the organisers managed to include plenty of social opportunities within the week. There was also a games session where we could meet each other informally in team games!

I learned about how employees can get involved with various volunteering opportunities and charity work, which I think is very unique to Bloomberg as they offer so many different programmes to get stuck in with. Through the Terminal, you can discover what opportunities there are currently available to you as an employee and sign up to them, it is really seems like there is no shortage of activities you can do outside of your normal day to day job.

Overall, I would highly recommend this insight programme to a friend, and in fact have already done so! I gained such a holistic understanding of the company that I don't think I could have gained by just reading about it online, so I think that it is definitely a very worthwhile experience to have under my belt. The other interns I met were incredible and I've definitely made a lot of friends out of the week!