Operations Intern Review

I felt like my work was valued hugely within the team, and even after a couple of weeks I had fit in perfectly and felt like I had worked within the team for a long period of time.

My line manager was excellent and despite being incredibly busy herself, she gave me a huge amount of support throughout my internship and was always there to help.

My levels of work varied across my 10 weeks there, however towards the end I found myself very busy and juggling lots of projects at once which was exciting. However, on the whole I had a good level of work to get on with.

I was given a lot of responsibility during my internship including managing tasks, devising metrics to monitor customer experience on a weekly basis, carrying out my own mystery shopping programme, and planning/executing improvements in processes.

I thouroughly developed as an individual during my experience and developed my personal skills including in time management, presentation, IT, and communication. The internship was an invaluable experience and has definitely given me skills for life.

Being in a large office with a lot of other departments including an insurance contact centre, the atmosphere was very varied and there was always a lot going on. The atmosphere could have been better in my team's area however.

My line manager was very organised in planning my internship and ensured that I had experience in a range of different areas of the bank. She arranged meetings with other areas including risk in order to develop my knowledge in how the bank operates and help me to decide which area I would like to pursue my career in which was very beneficial.

The company let me travel down to Milton Keynes to have my own meeting, go to Leicester to network with the other interns, along with flying me down to Southampton for an audit of the cards bureau with another team which was thoroughly enjoyable.

My future employment prospects within the organisation seem very bright, and although they are unable to make job offers for the graduate scheme, I am able to get fast-tracked to the assessment centre and the reference from my line manager will be hugely beneficial.

As there were only a few other interns in my office who were working in different teams, we didn't cross paths on a regular basis and so there wasn't a social scene as such. However I became good friends with another intern and a graduate, and regularly went out for drinks/lunch with them which was enjoyable.

Due to living far from the office where I was based, I had to live in a flat in Leeds city centre which ended up being quite expensive due to the wage which I was being paid. However on a graduate salary, living there would seem much cheaper due to the improved job salary.

The nightlife in Bradford (where the office was) wasn't great; however I lived in Leeds city centre and commuted daily where the nightlife was excellent and highly recommended.

Other than social activities and meals out with the team, there weren't many other opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work. I did make friends with a guy in our team though and I went out with him and his friends quite a bit outside of work which was nice.