Investment Intern Review

My internship at M&G was extremely enjoyable, despite being completed remotely. Contact beforehand from HR was regular and helpful. Everyone I reached out to seemed keen to talk, despite being busy, and almost always offered to send over further information or arrange a follow up call. I found the work itself extremely interesting and varied, and, being remote, I was able to attend international meetings that I otherwise wouldn't have been invited to. Overall a really positive experience where I always looked forward to the next day.

During my time at M&G I felt extremely valued by my colleagues. This included being encouraged to ask questions/participate in external meetings and always receiving recognition/feedback on work I did for the team. It was made clear to me that the work I was doing was appreciated and meant that my team could spend the time that doing this themselves would have taken them further explaining things to me. I didn't feel significantly more junior than everyone else and was never patronised/made to feel stupid for not knowing something.

I experienced a great deal of support throughout the entire internship. My manager was very approachable which made it easy to ask any questions and genuinely seemed to care about my learning/experience. They set up meetings with younger members of the wider team to give me an insight into their respective departments which was helpful for providing context to the work I was doing. We also worked together to set objectives at the start of the process and made sure I was happy these were fulfilled by the end.

There were lots of meetings/video calls but limited desk work so I found the workload manageable overall. I wasn't ever bored/lacking things to do or feeling overworked. The work itself was varied and interesting so time went fast. I wasn't given any repetitive/mundane tasks. Quieter days gave me the opportunity to connect with others in the business. I ended up working from 8:30/9am - 5:30/6pm most days and got the impression that even those in permanent positions still enjoyed a good work/life balance.

The amount of responsibility I was given gradually increased throughout the internship but was never especially high. Being new to the industry, and often not understanding everything that was said, I felt comfortable with this and was happy to just listen into meetings/calls in the beginning to pick up new terms/jargon. By the end of the internship, I had been trusted to go into an external meeting by myself, had given a presentation to the wider team (c.20 people) and had produced several pieces of work which were filed for later use by the team.

This is an industry in which I am hoping to pursue a career so expect to make use of what I learnt in years ahead. In terms of the usefulness of skills in degree studies, I expect to use little of what I learnt in the coming year. However, this is solely because of the nature of university work being more theory based whereas the knowledge I picked up is more practical. There was limited training so it was more a case of learning on the job.

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The internship was extremely well organised. As a group of interns, we had a variety of talks from senior members of different departments every couple of days, arranged by HR. Ahead of our first day, we received instructions on the IT set-up and a schedule of what would be happening as well as information about the team that we would be working with. Socials were also arranged for us, including an escape room, a virtual pub quiz and leaving drinks.

In terms of training, it was expected that we would pick things up on the way/learn from members of our team. The duration of the internship was only 5 weeks due to it being remote so I was glad we could spend the entire time working within our teams, rather than spending a week or two training at the start. It sounds like training is saved for the graduate programme - they do an intensive 5 weeks at the start before sitting the IMC.

Very appealing. The next 'stage' after the internship is the graduate programme which is rotational, with 5 weeks training at the start. It sounds like this gives you a great experience of working with different teams and asset classes, after which you roll off by applying internally to a permanent position. The graduate cohort were all extremely friendly during our time on the internship and seemed close as a group. Even higher up in the firm, everyone seemed to really enjoy what they were doing and never seemed too stressed or overworked.

Because the internship was completed remotely and the interns scattered across the firm, we were unable to socialise as much as we perhaps would in person. Group intern projects allowed us some time to get to know one another but we definitely missed out on informal chats over lunch/drinks. However, the graduates all seemed to socialise together and other colleagues would meet for drinks. I got the impression that, had it not been in the middle of a pandemic, the social scene would have been good.

This internship was meant to take place in London and the accommodation I had booked was expensive for what it was. However, ultimately this did not matter as I completed the internship completely remotely, working from home.

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