Investment Intern Review

Due to the coronavirus pandemic my internship at M&G was virtual. They sent me a surface pro to use during my time and the internship was run via video calls and emails from home. I thought it was very good of the company to be able to adapt to this so quickly and keep it running rather than cancelling, which I think says a lot about the culture at M&G. Just due to the virtual nature, it wasn't as exciting as being in the office would have been, but there was definitely a lot of thought put in to the sessions they provided us and how the structure of the shortened (5 weeks from 8 weeks) internship would run. The virtual socials were a nice chance to get to know the other interns and insight sessions from senior people in the business gave a good overview of the whole business.

I think M&G puts a good amount of effort into nurturing and looking after the interns and grads. I was always listened to in team meetings and people value your input even though you have less experience that everyone else. People are very open to speaking to you, and keen to share their knowledge to help you in your development. It is evident that the business understands how important it is to keep talent within the company.

I felt so supported during my time with the company - my line manager gave me a lot of his time to explain to me about the team and business and properly brief me before starting on any work. He also made sure I wasn't too overwhelmed and would check up on me often. Despite being on holiday for two of the weeks he was still checking in to see how I was doing. I also had a graduate buddy which was so helpful to have someone to talk to who had been in my place before, get advice from and to find out about the grad scheme.

Most days we had an hour intern insight session into a new area of the business which were presentations from a senior member or members of that team. I then would also have half an hour team calls to catch up with everyone. Most days I would have at least a couple hours of more calls, and then the rest of the day to do work I've been given, or plan presentations for the internship, or complete training, etc. I always had something to do and remained fairly busy throughout the internship.

I was given a good amount of responsibility with the projects I worked on during my internship. There was always support and help if I needed it but also was given enough encouragement to research on my own and make my own opinions. My team wasn't client focused so didn't have responsibility in that regard. However, I contributed to documents that were sent out to the large business area I was working in so had responsibility there.

As my degree is in STEM this internship isn't directly relevant, however I learnt the statistical program R and used Excel a lot which will be helpful in my degree. It has definitely been so helpful for my future career, giving me a great insight into asset management and economics, and have developed a lot of knowledge and skills in these areas. I also received training for Eikon and Macrobond, which are widely used in the industry so will be a great addition to the CV.

I had to do this internship online so am unable to give a well-rounded opinion for this question. However, I did assess for the role in the office and it seemed like a lovely, open place to work and everyone was friendly. During the internship I got a good feel for what the office would have been like. It seems like a collaborative space and all the people talked to told me what a lovely place it is to work.

Before the pandemic, the plan for internship was well set up with intro sessions to various areas of the company, socials and projects to do. Since Covid-19 meant the internship had to become virtual and the company was given a fairly short time to adapt I thought that the program worked pretty well. Most the things we were going to have were squeezed into the shortened 5 weeks and most things generally worked as well as they could. Obviously a lot of thought was put into how they would make this work.

As part of my role in my team I received a good amount of training for softwares that I would need to use. I received two hour long virtual training sessions for both Eikon and Macrobond, which were helpful. I also tasked with learning the program language R, for which I was provided with a good amount of resources to do so. Also, despite only being with the company for 5 weeks, they made sure we completed mandatory training for full-time joiners on areas such as whistleblowing, conflicts of interest, fraud, etc.

I would say all future employment prospects are very appealing with the company. The graduate investment program is well respected and competitive and offers a good and thorough rotation through the various parts of the organisation. At the end of the internship is a tough assessment centre for the graduate program. All the graduates I spoke to were satisfied with the company and the scheme and encouraged me to apply, which I will be doing.

Cannot comment too much due to online internship but seems like there is usually lots of social things to get involved in.

As was virtual I did not need to rent anywhere in London. However, when I was looking into it, it does seem to be quite expensive but depends on where you live. The office is located near Bank station.

Cannot comment as it was an online internship.

Cannot comment as it was an online internship, but I have heard there are clubs to get involved in within the company.