RBS Finance Intern Review

I enjoyed my placement tremendously and hope to continue a career along a similar line. There are a number of reasons why I enjoyed the internship so much which are covered in the following questions. For example the team that I was placed in were superb from the minute I started and included me in every aspect from important reports to social occasions. I was surprised at the positive atmosphere around RBS Gogarburn when there is so much constant negativity in the press but I think that reflects extremely well on the attitude and skill of the people who work here.

10 weeks is a short time in comparison to a career so it can be difficult/intimidating meeting a team and attempting to develop a working relationship. However as I said in the previous question, my team were excellent and appeared to value the work I produced and the opinions I had on certain areas. As the weeks flew in I was trusted with more and more pieces of work which I took as a compliment that members of my team trusted my ability.

I really could not fault my manager in any area and in particular the support he offered was greatly appreciated. Any problem I had he would do his upmost to try and help me which I really appreciated. Another good point was that my manager was straight to the point and wasted no time in saying something was incorrect and needed changed which I thought saved time and made me more determined to ensure that the work I produced did not contain errors.

The first couple of weeks are admittedly hard going as I was trying to find my feet and I had to complete a number of training models which involved a great deal of reading. This was not the best but the same routine happens in every job. Once I had completed the first few weeks I had a brilliant balance of work, busy throughout the day which made time go incredibly quickly but I always finished at a reasonable time.

I felt I was given a degree of responsibility that I was comfortable with, the work I was assigned was very important but nothing would be directly seen by senior management without my manager checking first, ensuring a balanced level of responsibility.

I have graduated now so the skills I have developed will not help in that area but I feel simple skills such as forming relationships with people who have been established in a team for many years will assist me in countless situations in the coming years. Communication is incredibly important in every aspect of a professional career so the experience over the last 10 weeks has been invaluable in improving that skill.

My office was a great place to work and there was never a dull moment. However the team always knew when the fun had to stop and serious hard work had to take place. Noone is ever constantly happy but there was no issues with colleagues being dull and boring or moaning about their jobs too much.

Internship was well organised but since I was based in Edinburgh with only a few other interns whereas the majority were in London in my opinion we were a little bit cut off from the main activities.

I felt the company could improve this aspect, the 10 week internship will prove invaluable but there was no clear training schemes offered to interns.

I asked a number of people regarding this area and the main theme was if you want to work hard you can expect to have excellent future employment prospects which is very encouraging in my opinion.

There was an excellent social scene with my colleagues and I often played football, went golfing up near Carnoustie and attended Festival shows. The social aspect with other interns was good and we went out a number of times but often most people had to get the last train home because they did not live in Edinburgh.

I lived at home so the cost was minimal apart from the train each day. Socialising in Edinburgh is already not cheap but with the festival being on at the same time, this meant that it was very expensive but also a great night out!

Nightlife was great!

As I have previously mentioned I attended golfing trips, football and many other nights out so there was loads of opportunities to get involved in things outside of work.