Business Analyst Internship Review

It was enjoyable because Tesco ran a virtual internship instead of cancelling it, meaning that we were still able to get some experience. The content of the internship was different to what I applied for but considering the time they had to come up with a new internship idea, I think that it was really good. We conducted a research project with other interns and presented our research at the end of the internship. :)

It was a virtual internship so it was difficult to really connect with the other interns, but we had daily meetings with the interns that I was working on the project with. We were able to collaborate together which formed a nice environment in which we would go to each other for help. The colleagues running the internship did a fantastic job trying to bring us all together with different events and training which was our main contact with interns not in our groups.

From the start we were supported by our managers, any help we needed to get set up and any problems we faced were quickly solved by them. In terms of our project, we were guided through the main steps and we were always able to find time with them to run through ideas or validate our progress. They also checked in with us in regular intervals to see how we were faring throughout the internship.

Due to the internship being relatively short (6 weeks) it was quite busy as we had till the end of the internship to deliver our presentation. This time went very fast so there was fairly little downtime. In the downtime there were quite a few planned activities whether they were training events, learning about different areas of the business, meeting the business leaders etc. There were only a few days in the whole thing where nothing was planned which we used to work on our projects.

The entire internship was a research project ending in a presentation, other than the brief and basic guidance it was up to us to shape our project and come up with ideas. We were able to run our ideas by anyone we wanted really to see if it was a good direction to pursue. So we were working independently as interns to develop our research and presentation. It was independent but it wasn't abandoned, we were checked in on fairly frequently where we could request support if needed.

The internship definitely helped interns who weren't familiar with enterprise software and tools in terms of getting to know how to communicate within a business. Since it was virtual, all the meetings took place online (on Teams) which in itself was a learning experience because it's very different to meeting in real life. It requires more effort to communicate and work together online so exposure to that was quite helpful. Other than that it was useful to put research skills we learn at Uni into practice in a business environment.

The internship wasn't in office so I didn't get to see what it was like and can't really comment on it. From what I experienced in the virtual meetings, it was good because it was in the comfort of our own homes so we got to experience what work from home was like. Working from home was easy with Tesco as it was easy to set up the systems and there was a lot of online help if we needed.

Many summer internships were cancelled due to Covid-19. Tesco was able to keep the interns on through an online internship. The normal internships that we applied for didn't take place but the early careers team did a great job to create new projects that we could undertake for the six weeks. It was well structured in that, there was always something to be getting on with, but not so structured where we weren't able to work independently.

Tesco has their own learning and development system that we were able to get access to, and originally being on the Technology internship I was given access to Pluralsight and O'Reilly books which were useful sources. Pluralsight has a lot of online courses and there are quite a few gems in there. Also some of the courses are very practical which offer detailed guides. O'Reilly books is as the name suggests, a library, of mostly tech books.

Due to Covid-19 there is a lot of uncertainty with the hiring process but if the next hiring cycle goes on as planned then we should get offers. Even if they don't give offers straight up we will be fast-tracked to the assessment centre which where the interviews will be very similar to how they were when we were applying for the interview. It also helps that we know more people in the area we applied to so we were given a lot of insight.

It was hard to socialize with the other interns because we were scattered around the country, some interns that lived fairly close to each other were available to arrange a meetup a couple of times. Other than that and online conversations we weren't able to spend much time with each other. Colleagues who had been interns talked about how there were lots of events to hang out with each other throughout the internship and interns arranged a lot of things by themselves.

The head office is based in Welwyn Garden city which is quite close to London, I didn't get to move there but when I was looking for accommodation, rent prices for shared accommodation was around £500 - £600 a month. It is very accessible by train so it could be easy if you already live in London or surrounding areas e.g St Albans. I'd assume that socialising costs would be around the same as in London.

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