Digital Transformations Intern Review

As part of the internship Programme I spent the majority of my time on placement. This is where I joined a team in the bank and joined their meetings or did work for them. My placement was in Retail Digital X. Interns also do a business project in a group of 4-6 people, which is then presented in the second last week of the internship. One afternoon a week is assigned to working on that. There is also time for self-led learning, speaker sessions, and wellbeing activities throughout the week.

The main skill that I have developed is digital literacy. When I joined the internship Programme I wasn't very confident at using Excel, but after getting help from a colleague on my team and completing online learning modules I feel much more confident. Besides digital literacy I have definitely developed my networking skills. I had to practice this to meet and connect with other interns, but I also got in contact with more senior members of the bank and set up meetings to expand my network.

I was given more responsibility than I was expecting. Within my first week I had started a piece of work that was then presented in a team meeting a couple of weeks later. It was checked over regularly by my manager and I knew I could ask any questions I needed to so it was not stressful but good to feel that I was being useful and producing something that would be helpful to my team.

Every intern is assigned a graduate buddy who you have weekly catch-ups with. My buddy was excellent and very supportive, she gave a lot of good advice and made sure that any problems I had were resolved. You also get the support of your line manager and wider team who are there to provide you with work and answer any questions you may have. I was a bit nervous before starting about being thrown in the deep end but that wasn't the case at all.

Very positive. I think there's a stereotype with banking that everyone is very cut throat and trying to push people out of the way to get to the top but that wasn't at all the experience I had. The majority of people I interacted with were very friendly and helpful. I also worried about the work-life balance, thinking that I would be expected to put in very long hours but again I was pleasantly surprised. There was great emphasis on wellbeing and not stretching yourself too thin.

Given the programme is 8 weeks long I thought that it would drag a bit but I can honestly say that it didn't. I'm not saying the work I was doing was always very exciting, a lot of excel spreadsheets, however I wasn't bored. One thing I will say is that my manager was away for a lot of the programme so at that point I definitely didn't enjoy it as much as I didn't feel I had as much work to do but that was purely situational.

Yes

Take every opportunity you can and make the most of the social activities, especially at the beginning. Ask to have a chat with more senior people or anyone you think has an interesting job, the worst that can happen is that they don't reply or say they're too busy but it can mean that you get an insight into people's career paths which can be both helpful and interesting. Also be in the office as much as you can be or as much is feasible, you'll learn a lot more and it's a nice atmosphere.