Commercial Banking Summer Intern Review

3 main types of work: Corporate social responsibility project, business project which focuses on climate change and placement where I'm placed in a business team. For the two projects we carry those out in groups of interns and use different methods in the workplace to tackle different problems. In my placement I'm given a mini project by my line manager and I do it with the help of the team of permanent employees. Also the Early Careers team has arranged a lot of workshops and speaker sessions to attend.

I have learnt many skills. The most significant one is teamwork, I had a lot of experience working with teams this summer and many times when our colleagues were busy I got to understand what to do under those circumstances. Also I have gained the skill of task and time management -- gradually learnt how to manage my time and allocate different time slots to different types of work. Facing a lot of challenges that I've net met before enables me to solve problems using different mindset, for example asking for help from senior colleagues and utilising different kinds of resources.

Definitely. For the social project and the business development project my team members and I are the ones taking in charge of the whole task. We then take different parts of the project and tried our best to accomplish those. For my placement with the working team my line manager has stated very clearly that I'm responsible for myself and what I'm doing and she's only here to help. Later on I worked on my mini-project all by myself while asking for guidance on a weekly basis.

Lots of support and guidance. Each of our interns has a buddy who plays the role of mentor. Personally my buddy is very supportive and helpful as she takes a lot of responsibility in helping me develop myself and giving me advice on how to face the challenges. She also gives me a lot of advice and shows me her insight as a graduate. For our CSR challenge we have a group mentor and she's helping us with our project all way through. I have daily catch-ups with my line manager and she's always open to my phone calls and emails promptly. Also everyone on my placement team is very glad to help me.

Everyone is very helpful and easy to get on with. In the meantime my colleagues are very supportive to each other and provides me, an intern, a lot of advice. As climate is something NatWest Group really cares, it implement this idea in every level of the company. Every colleague realises this such an important issue and people are doing their best to contribute. Many colleagues also attend many volunteering and fundraising events actively, which responds to the group's long-term strategy.

It's such a great opportunity for university students to learn and get a commercial awareness before we leave school. We got to build the network, put ourselves into some real-life business and most of all knowing that we can make an impact to climate and social responsibility related events. I especially like how the team and colleagues are helping me build up my skills and also the HR team's design of the 8 weeks' programme, combining different kinds of tasks and insightful workshops.

Yes

Do some researches on the company beforehand and try to build a network around and connect to the employees who tend to share their real experience to help you find out whether you're a good fit for the company. Usually they'll also give you some tips for applying. Really understand the culture and opportunities of NatWest because while it fits some it's not for everyone. Most importantly prepare fully as the roles are really competitive.