Investment Banking summer analyst Review

The internship at J.P. Morgan, though only 5 weeks, was an extremely challenging but also rewarding experience given the current circumstances and virtual environment. My experience already started 4 months before the actual internship where they made an enormous effort to ensure we are guided through this virtual setting very well and have answered any questions we may have. Moreover, I was extremely impressed by how well the IT-systems where set-up and how much I enjoyed the various networking sessions via zoom with seniors of various divisions across the firm. Furthermore, I had a great time with the team I interned in and enjoyed the amount of responsibility given to me, which the team tried to fit my capabilities and attitude. Overall, I could not have wished for a better experience - Throughout the internship I felt guided, understood and supported such that I can perform my internship to the best of my capabilities, which is exactly what an intern would expect.

I was particularly impressed by how much my colleagues valued my opinion and where interested in my personality and ambitions. Even before the start of the internship, we had various networking sessions with the team via zoom, which helped a lot in order to have a strong start into the internship. Throughout the internship, I received almost real-time feedback to my tasks next to the scheduled feedback sessions every week, which I feel strongly helped my development over the course of the weeks and grow my personality.

My supervisor and team were constantly available for any questions I might have and immediately took action in case something was unclear or did not work. Given the pandemic, they took a lot of effort in order to make sure that we interns are all set up and well-guided through the internship to ensure that we have a similar great experience as we would have had, would we have been in the office. Moreover, the team set up a zoom room that we interns could join every day if we had any questions.

I had a great workload during my internship and kept myself busy not only with tasks and project-related work for the team as well as the case study, but also with a number of networking chats across the firm and other speaker events. All these various insights complemented my great internship experience and challenged me every day in terms of time management and communication. However, the team also tried to staff according to our capacities and current workload, which resulted in a great balance.

What I particularly valued during my internship was that right from the start of the programme, my team tried to assess my capabilities with smaller immediate tasks and based on my performance, the amount of responsibility increased gradually over the weeks, resulting in very relevant project work and direct work with senior people. Towards the end of the internship, I enjoyed the feeling of ownership for the work I did, the trust given to me as well as the team involvement, which is exactly what an intern is looking for in an internship experience.

The valuable experience I could gain during the internship as well as skills I was able to develop will definitely be of great help to better relate the theoretical background of my studies to the actual practical work and markets. Moreover, I believe that I could strongly improve both my technical and communication skills during the internship, which will also be of great advantage when I perform other upcoming internships and return as a full-time analyst to J.P. Morgan next year. It's been a challenging but even more rewarding experience to work together with such talented and ambitious people at J.P. Morgan.

I felt that the team was genuinely nice and people respected each other. Given the virtual environment, I could not get the full experience and social interaction that I would have wish. Still, there was an open-door office culture where we could have brief chats with both juniors as well as very senior people. Our supervisor also constantly communicated the expected workload during our daily 30 min team meeting sessions, which helped the team understand the upcoming projects.

Already months before the start of the internship, IT and HR eventually sent several emails, asking us for details regarding our location and home working set-ups as well as requiring us to fill out numerous forms in order to ensure that we have a smooth onboarding, which worked out very well. throughout the internship, I only had minor IT issues, which was already better than at previous internships. When we started, the systems where already set-up and our outlook calendar had numerous scheduled events for our remote training week and mandatory speaker events.

Even before the start of the internship, we were asked to completed an online assessment such that we know our technical knowledge and can estimate the amount of extra preparation we need to invest in order to be on a good level and when we start. During the first week , we had a financial modeling and accoounting training with financial edge including online assessment tests and homeworks. In the second week, we had a number of training sessions with different teams across the firm in order to help us understand how we can most efficient perform the actual practical work. Overall the training greatly helped everyone without prior finance or accounting knowledge to be in a great position and have enough background knowledge to start smoothly into the internship.

I believe that J.P. Morgan is one of the greatest managed organisation to start a career at, given its talented people, international mindset and cultural diversity. The exposure one could expect is only limited to ones own capabilities and hence, I think, enables everyone with an ambitious attitude to experience a sharp learning curve where one becomes an expert on both a technical as well as client-facing basis. The connections you will make and network you get will be of great advantage in your overall career prospects.

In my team I interned with five other interns and we already had a number of chats before the internship. Throughout the internship, we had calls every day in order to help each other in case of any questions regarding work or administrative issues. We also created a whatsapp chat, which was very helpful. We also created a virtual chat room in our remote portal with interns of other divisions, where people also had frequent chats with each other. The interns I got to know where extremely supportive and willing to help each other.

During my remote internship I was located in the city of St. Gallen in Switzerland, where I paid a monthly rent of c.CHF 800. I lived together with a roommate who also interned at J.P. Morgan and every Friday we used to go to a restaurant for dinner. During the week, we ordered food from Lieferando at an average cost of c.CHF20 per meal, which was quite expensive. However, J.P. Morgan dedicated a relocation bonus of GBP 1,000 to our first salary, which helped a lot in order to afford the living costs and purchase equipment for the remote work.

During my internship, I did not go to a bar or club too often as we used to work very late into the evening, given our workload of assignments. However, we eventually had drinks on the weekend in a bar in St. Gallen. The nightlife itself was hence not very special. However, since J.P. Morgan did, in my opinion, everything possible in order that we feel comfortable in our location, I give this criteria six stars.

Indeed, during the internship, we received multiple emails from J.P. Morgan regarding activities (e.g. diversity or social programs) in which we could get involved in. As the internship was only five weeks, instead of ten, I did, however, not get involved into too many activities but tried to participate in as many networking calls as possible. J.P. Morgan really tried to encourage us to do a lot of networking, which is why I give this criteria 7 stars.