Intern Review

My placement was ten weeks long and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole placement. I felt that i got an enviable insight into the daily work and activities of a Private Banker as well gaining an overview of what different departments do and how they work together through insight days/sessions put in place throughout the internship.

I felt nothing but valued by other members of my team from day one. The gratitude expressed when I completed work for a colleague was refreshing and made me want to work hard to help them, receive this appreciation and please them.

I feel that the internship scheme was very well developed in this sense. Each intern was aligned to a line manager and I felt that mine gave me all the support I needed and more. Alongside weekly chars we also had a set mid point review where we covered how I was working towards my objectives being met but also discussed what we would like to get out of the second half of the internship which i felt very valuable. We also had a couple of meetings with recruitment and the MD who sponsors the graduate and internship schemes where they asked for our feedback and I felt that I could tell that this was hugely valued and would be acted on.

I feel that this internship had a good balance in terms of keeping me busy but not flooding me with work so that i felt i had to be in the office till the late hours of the evening like some of the internships you hear about.

I feel that I was given as much responsibility as I could have been at this stage and with the qualifications I have (or rather do not have yet). My team were always keen to give me work that made a contribution to the team and lessened their work load but most importantly for me work that they felt that I would learn from, find interesting and benefit from doing.

I have developed skills that I already obtained which will help me in my final year at university and going forward such as presentation skills, team work, meeting deadlines, time management and networking as well as role specific skills which will be invaluable should i be offered a place on the graduate scheme.

I found the atmosphere to be a pleasant surprise. Everyone was more than just friendly but were generally friends and I feel that this made the team work better together and be more efficient in getting their work done. The fact that everyone was so friendly, easy-going and welcoming made me get the most of my internship as I was able to ask questions when I needed.

I feel that the internship was extremely well organised. All the interns had a week of training to start and then we each went to our seperate groups for the remaining nine weeks. We had many insight days/sessions and networking events organised for us throughout the internship which were incredibly valuable and interesting.

The company invested as much as seems appropriate at this stage. We had a week of training at the start of the internship which, given that the internship was ten weeks long, seemed like an appropriate amount of training.

One of the things that attracted me to this internship was the fact that it seemed to be a feeder for interns who performed well onto the graduate scheme. The fact that there are fewer interns than there are graduate places is a nice position to be in as the interns don't feel the need to compete against each other. We find out on the last day of our internship (next friday) if we have been offered a place on the scheme!

The social scene has been very active. There were quite a few networking events organsied during the scheme for people on the internship and people currently on the graudate schemes which have been very fun. As well as this everyone seems to be very sociable anyway and I have made lots of friends who I socialise with after hours of our own accord.

Being In London obviously the cost of living and socialising is very high. However I have rated this as above due to the fact that a) the internship is paid so this offset's this cost and b) when networking events are organsied for us these are obviously free of charge and Coutts are very generous at these events in terms of food and drink!

Given that I was based in central London then nightlife couldn't be much better. The office location was very convenient for after work drinks and when we wanted to carry on after networking events!

As part of the internship we completed a charity challenge which was to raise a minimum of £1000 for the Prince's Trust charity in a 12 hour fundraising window. There are also e-mails sent around about getting involved in sports activities outside of work which are open to all employees be that an Intern or a Managing Director.