CMB Intern Review

The internship team were incredibly welcoming and were very engaging from the outset. My placement team also provided me with work that stretched my understanding, but also provided an introduction to banking as I do not have a background in finance. As the internship was virtual, a lot of time and effort was made to ensure the interns were kept busy and the team always checked that we had work to do, were enjoying it and found it worthwhile.

As the internship was online, it was difficult to establish personal connections as every meeting was held over Zoom. However, all employees were incredibly welcoming and always offered up their time for you to either help you understand something, or give insight into their career paths, and more often than not give you advice on your future career too. It would have been nice to develop more informal relationships, however this was not the fault of HSBC but rather the virtual nature of the internship.

My manager was incredibly engaged and was willing to meet with me whenever I needed to. I also had access to a member of staff on the Grad scheme to help me with my direction, and another manager to oversee my general wellbeing and placement direction. In all, I felt there was always someone to speak to if I needed work, guidance or advice on what I was doing. Cannot fault this side of the internship at all.

There were moments where I felt that I didn't necessarily stretch my capabilities to the highest ability. However, I think as the team I was placed in was not particularly busy during the period of my internship it would be unfair to punish them on this front. I regularly got given objectives to complete but was never swamped with work. I also had to complete two team based projects independent of my placement throughout the 5 weeks with other interns.

Due to the nature of the virtual internship, it was very difficult for HSBC to establish sufficient safety measures where they could entrust you with client's data. As such, the ability to do meaningful work for clients was minimal. However, I still felt the intern team and placement team tried as hard as they can to ensure we had useful objectives, such as creating informative presentation and analysing less sensitive information. Only giving a poor rating as COVID enforced little access to HSBC systems.

This is where I believe the internship has outdone itself. Every employee I contacted was willing to spend time helping me progress, whether it was explaining technical details of the job or developing my softer skills. I have learnt a whole heap of things in my first ever internship that I doubt I would be able to learn without witnessing it all first hand. Every day there was a new presentation aimed at developing the intern's employability and technical knowledge.

Again, this is not really relevant as the internship was done virtually. However, the atmosphere I established even virtually was that everyone got on really well and the general vibe was that there was a 'work hard play hard' atmosphere. I also established this from speaking to other members of HSBC. The intern team and placement team regularly held socials throughout the 5 weeks. This was good but also difficult to establish relations over Zoom.

From the get go, the internship team ensured we were always informed about how the internship would play out. The first two days were structured as an intro to the bank, with employees giving us the run down on how it will run. Throughout the internship, there were regular drop ins to check up on us and then on the final day there was a 'goodbye' session to wave all the interns off, bringing a nice end to the 5 weeks.

This is another point where I feel the internship excelled. There were regular presentations from employees and high up members of HSBC to develop our connections. We also had access to online learning platforms to independently develop our skills, and this was pushed onto us by HSBC. They also ensured we completed mandatory training to develop our understandings of the company as a whole. The trainings varied from technical skills to softer skills such as networking and presenting.

The future of banking is precarious however I do think as an institution HSBC is moving towards a very appealing situation as an employer. They offer very good opportunities to develop, but it may be difficult to move onto the grad scheme due to the incredibly competitive nature of it. The pay is competitive and the benefits of working for the company is fantastic. HSBC also looks very good on a CV, so completing the grad scheme is beneficial in that sense too.

Every week the intern team and fellow 'head of socials' interns hosted a social for all the interns. Again though, as this was virtual, it was very difficult to establish genuine connections with fellow interns as there is only so much socialising that can be done over a computer. However, I appreciated the effort that was put into it but I feel like there was slightly too much emphasis put onto socialising, and as I didn't enjoy it, felt I may have missed out on networking opportunities.