Spring into Bournemouth Review

Insight was very well organized and people from J.P. Morgan very friendly. The program was split into informative (lecture style) and proactive (work shadowing, BarSo, agile and murder investigation exercises). This organization kept me interested and not bored for all time as well as learn more and enjoy time there better. Only minus is that I was not able to get all information I sought during insight. During work shadowing I was assigned to very nice and informative people, but they did not develop software themselves, but they either test it or respond to emergencies. In the result, I still have no idea of how would software development look like in J.P. Morgan. I tried to get this answer from elsewhere, but succeeded only to small extent. Perhaps, it could be better to assign work shadowing basing on candidates interests and give wider scope of employees (not only graduates and from manager up).

I found company approach fantastic. Everyone truly seemed open and friendly regardless of the position in the company. Moreover, we were even told that we should approach everyone from security guy or cleaners the same way, what in my eyes is great plus for the company. Because of that I grew huge respect for J.P. Morgan as a company.

I got most questions answered and the event was well organized that I could get those. Only one problem is that I did not get any real grasp of how software development in the company would look like and it was one of my most important questions.

It helped me in the way that I know more what is expected from my as a candidate and I am able to prepare better for interview. Moreover, I learnt what are company values and approach to software development and I know better if J.P. Morgan is a company for me.

The overall structure was fantastic. Everything went very smoothly and on-time, but still it was flexible that if one time we had too many questions to fit in given time it was adjusted.

Everyone seemed happy and relaxed. The insight was structured in a way that I could feel comfortable and make new friends among other students easily. J.P. Morgan employees were very friendly and helpful.

I have worked my 3 previous internships in a company with agile values, so I found great part about agile repetitive (but I think there was not many as I there). I found murder investigation exercise very interesting and testing my co-working skills. However, to be honest beside knowledge related to work in J.P. Morgan I did not learn much.

As a technology person I am very interested in software development career. As a person with both previous work experience and good knowledge of specific technology areas I was looking to see where I could fit in the company and how specific progress could look like. During the event it was very hard to relate gained knowledge to my specific case as well as because of the speakers and people who I work shadowed I could not get answers to this questions.

I think I was presented to the company culture and values really well in the best and most practical way.

It helped me to clear some doubts, but not all of them. For example, I know J.P. Morgan is very technological company with huge investments, but I am afraid that work could not be as challenging and interesting as it would be in Google/Microsoft/Facebook which invest a lot of resources into research such as distributed/parallel computing, new programming languages etc.

I was paid for flight and my stay in a hotel. However, I was not paid for a train from London to Bournemouth which cost me £21.90 (not to mention bus travel to airport which I usually pay by myself and not ask for reimbursement). However, with the train travel I think it should be reimbursed as for example when I attended Code 4 Good Challenge such expense was pre-paid for me. I raised this concern when talking to J.P. Morgan travel agent and explained the issue (I was travelling from Edinburgh to Southampton and by train to Bournemouth). The agent after listening to me told me that I will have train tickets ordered as well, but that never happened and I ended up paying for train travel.

Yes, I have meet many graduates, MDs, and higher. Everyone was open and happy to answer questions. Only one small draw was lack of meeting people in a range of work I would be interested doing in the company.

I really enjoyed both agile and murder mystery games. Moreover, hang out in BarSo was great opportunity to network with other students as well as to ask more questions to J.P. Morgan people.

I heard from people who take part in such activities and found it really interesting and informative.

Yes, it was absolutely great and I appreciate that it extends to early assessment centre what finds together very nicely. The only problem I can see is that early assessment centre is very early and requires early reply, too. I received interest as a possible companies from Microsoft, Google, and Facebook and would like to have all possibilities in hand to make a right decision. I am still unsure which I would choose.