Impaired Debt Committee Team Review

A very enjoyable placement. The shadowing opportunities which enabled me to see various different parts of the bank and gain an understanding of where the impairment team fitted into the wider picture were particularly valuable.

I worked on quite a small team and everyone else on the team was fantastic. Roy and Himanshi were very helpful and supportive.

Don't expect your line manager to hold your hand and be looking over your shoulder all the time. Part of the experience is learning how to work independently so you don't get the same level of support and guideance you might have got at high school and college.

Generally very busy with plenty to do but it does vary from day to day and week to week. When a new project arrive you feel like you're snowed under with work but there are also quieter times.

I was given as much responsibility as was reasonably possible in a bank. You're certainly not going to be able to come into Barclays after 2 years at university and run the show (a lot more experience is required to do this) but within the scope of the project I was doing I was given the opportunity to recommend new ways of presenting information and redesign the spreadsheets I was working on to make them easier to use, which was good.

I consider the commercial experience gained at Barclays to be increadibly valuable. I personally will be persuing a career in commercial banking but even if you decided not to the transferrable skills are excellent to have and the experience looks very favourable on a CV.

Good fun but there was serious work to be done at the end of the day.

HR were absolutely spot on. Introductory drinks when you first get here, intern events during the internship, a well organised final interview for the graduate job which was very clear in terms of what is required of you on the graduate scheme and when you hear whether you are successful or not. Intern masterclasses were also a fantastic feature which gave me a very valuable insight into which part of the bank I wanted to work in. It was nice to see that Barclays don't automatically assume that all interns have got their career paths perfectly planned for the next 20 years.

Masterclasses were very informative. One-to-ones with line manager were very valuable in terms of feedback. However, the main way in which I learnt about Barclays and banking in general was by shadowing graduates and other full time staff and asking them lots of questions. There are definitely opportunites to do this but it's very much up to you to organise it and take the initiative.

I don't want to speak too soon because the bank haven't confirmed whether we've been successful or not in our interviews but the general feeling is that there are definitely graduate opportunities at Barclays and if the summer interns are good enough they will have the first opportunity to go for these jobs before everyone else.

Yes - excellent. All of the interns were very sociable, likeminded people and the social side after work was very good.

Very expensive (particularly central London) but you might as well get used to it sooner rather than later.

There is pretty much anything and everything in Lodnon so whatever you're into you are likely to find it here.

Excellent - 5-a-side football after work, subsidised gym, boxercise classes, gym classed, local football teams to sign up for. Just very few tennis clubs in the area which is a shame.