Intern Review

I've had a fantastic experience working in this team. A combination of the great project opportunities and supportive, hard-working team has made it a very enjoyable experience. I have worked on over three initiatives, including the Financial Fitness podcast, Smart Adoption and Customer in the Room, and have been able to work on tangible deliverables for each. Within FF I have produced a detailed research proposal to steer the content of a future episode, whilst CiTR has allowed me to contact customers first-hand for additional feedback, which has driven and provided scope for future initiatives. I have even been able to fully integrate myself into the team's Agile PM framework, developing myself up to be a stand-in ‘scrum master’, giving me a great taste of the team's capacity, work rhythm and general culture. In addition, I've had the opportunity to review customer feedback and verbatim.

I felt very valued. The team in general took the role of intenr very seriously, and treated me as a new member very seriously throughout my short time there. I felt very integrated into the team, and loved working alongside supportive colleagues. With the responsibilities I was given in and outside of my placement work I felt as though I was valued, and was providing sufficient value to HSBC itself. It was nice to be given meaningful things to do.

My manager and team have been highly supportive throughout my internship. Early on whilst settling into my role, my manager made every effort to make sure my objectives and goals were clear through regular meetings and updates. My manager was also proactive in making sure I had everything I needed, or answered any initial concerns I had. I was also encouraged to meet my wider team early on, which proved very useful when starting my varied projects.

I have developed a number of skills throughout my placement. Development of organisation and time management skills has been essential to balance placement projects, the #GROW challenge, the internship project and more. I have also developed my skills in the use and implementation of the Agile project management mind set, which has given me great insight into scrum, retrospectives, sprints, FTEs, capacity and all accompanying terms and techniques. Furthermore, I have improved my skill in gaining value from interactions and connections, which has been essential when exploring other business areas and colleague career experiences. These will all benefit my studies and beyond.

The virtual internship was very well structured. The onboarding sessions were detailed and provided a good run up to the internship itself. Once onboarded there were plenty of development sessions and learning opportunities that helped us along the way. There was a clear structure to the five weeks signposted by milestones, which we were encouraged to discuss with our grad coaches. The start and end were signposted by induction and celebration events, and the timeframe was made clear throughout.

The atmosphere was great. Inside the work environment, I felt supported and in my team specifically the work ethic was fantastic. The use of the Agile methodology allowed for cross functional delivery of products meaning tasks were always available. Outside work the social atmosphere was brilliant between interns, and there was ample opportunity to interact with them, even through a virtual environment. The GROW challenge really fostered this virtual social environment, which I enjoyed very much.

the company was extremely invested in personal development. It started from the initial onboarding sessions, and especially with the allocation of a grad coach. We were given regular milestones to complete which aided this development, and a shortened PDP was required for us to track our development all the way through the placement. My manager was as invested in my development as I was, and he consistently gave me feedback on behalf of the company.

the virtual experience, whilst out of office gave me a great idea of the culture and working environment at HSBC. Even though it was based remotely, I still had great opportunities to make contact and connections with the wider HSBC team around me, helping me to develop my network and make valuable connections. I would be very keen to continue within the company given my great experience on the internship and the activities offered throughout the 5 weeks.

I did definitely manage to get an idea of the company culture at HSBC. Even though it was virtual, I found the way employees talked about HSBC to be very reflective of the culture as a whole. HSBC employees would always include the friendly and welcoming and inclusive atmosphere when talking about the company, and this definitely came across in one to one chats that I had with wider team members. I felt included and welcome.

The content being helpful was evident twofold throughout my internship. First, the placement work itself was detailed and specific enough for me to get an idea of the business area and team to help me shape my desires and wants for the future. Also the development plans put in place on onboarding sessions and milestones made us think about our own personalities and traits throughout our time, helping to pin down who and what we best work with, and what role we might want to go into.

I was very generously paid for the internship even though it was significantly reduced by coronavirus.

there were plenty of opportunities to network with other employees in the company. Anyone I contacted was more than willing to give me details of employees in other business area, or coaches who would be useful to talk to about my future career. It was great to book in time with people with the knowledge that they would always accept and be willing to share their own experiences and knowledge of the bank and their career paths..

The networking events were good, but could have perhaps been organised a little better. However I believe much of this was down to the difficulties in technology. In real life social networking events are much easier to organise, whereas over zoom it takes larger commitment and skill to put a similar event together. I am still impressed by the effort put forward by employees to organise these events for us as they were till beneficial and interesting.

Not as much.

I would definitely recommend this experience to a friend. The effort put in to organise it, and the work done throughout the internship was extremely good and it was very nice to be part of such a driven and motivational team behind the event. I would love to return to the company given its welcoming and interesting atmosphere, and I think the activities and events put on throughout the five weeks were exemplary to say the least.