Commercial Banking Summer Intern Review

I completed a range of tasks over the 8 weeks including creating newsletters, providing feedback on senior colleagues' work and holding learning sessions for my department. Each internship is unique and the experience will be completely dependent on the team you are in. I was completely back office so had no customer interaction and instead focused on helping all teams in my department. This also included reviewing projects and budgets.

My confidence massively improved over the course of the internship. I was given the opportunity to meaningfully contribute to many projects and given opportunities in public speaking and contact with senior members of staff that I never expected to get. I also developed my resilience, this is something HSBC really focuses on. Working a full time job and having deadlines as well as receiving feedback allowed me to become much more resilient.

As interns we were given a surprising amount of responsibility including ownership of projects. There were the appropriate support mechanisms in place to help if you struggled however I think it was really valuable to be able to be responsible for your own projects. The projects we completed were also actually used by HSBC rather than being put to one side as 'intern work'.

There was a good amount of support available with graduate supports such as a GradCoach and an On Programme Manger and the Emerging Talent Team who were all very friendly. This meant there was always the possibility to contact someone if you needed help or someone to talk to. The most important thing was being proactive in reaching out if you needed help or support.

The company was very friendly with nearly all senior colleagues valuing our input and being willing to sit down and talk with us about their career path and role in HSBC now. HSBC also has a big commitment to both Sustainability and Equality in all forms which was great to see and something interns were able to get actively involved in through projects. Interns were also given one day to take out as volunteering.

I had a great time on the internship and feel like a completely different person at the end to who I was when I started at HSBC. I enjoyed the projects that I was part of and found them both interesting and fulfilling and I feel I was given a good amount of opportunity to mold the internship into what I wanted it to be. I also made brilliant friends, both interns and not.

Yes

I think it is most important to be yourself as those that work in recruitment know exactly what they're doing and will understand whether you would be a good fit for HSBC or not. Additionally, show your passion for what HSBC does outside of the day to day such as its commitment to Sustainability and Diversity.