CitiQuest Participant (Capital Markets Originiation) Review

It was a great. Primarily on-the-desk experience during the day and networking events during the evening.

I felt extremely valued by Citi. When I walked into reception on the first day I didn't even have to tell HR my name - they must have studied everyone's photo id! This goes to show how hard HR worked to make the programme successful. James Bardrick, Citi's UK Head, also came to share his words of wisdom at the beginning of the programme.

My two main contacts were my buddy and line manager. My buddy was second year analyst and was in a great position to give me guidance on the technicalities of the job and what would be expected of me if I was to join Citi. My line manager was a VP, and together we set me goals for me to achieve by the end of the programme.

I was placed within DCM for the duration of the programme so the work was quite markets-focused. Because of this, the biggest thing the programme did for my degree studies was add some excitement to my macroeconomic studies.

I was given a well structured itinerary. One criticism I have is that the desk I was allocated to only knew that I was coming a few days before programme began. This made it difficult because they did not have much time to plan for the programme. Likewise, I wasn't told what desk I was on until the programme started, which meant that I couldn't adequately prepare.

It was a very professional atmosphere. Everyone I met was cheerful and welcoming.

I was given several primers on financial products, desks, industries etc and colleagues were happy to sit down with me and talk me through any parts I was struggling to understand. At my request, my buddy arranged for an employee of Bloomberg to come to the Citi office and teach me how to use the terminal.

The programme was primarily an on-the-desk experience. For this reason, I feel like I have a good understanding of what it would be like to be a full-time employee at Citi.

I feel that the culture of a company is quite difficult to grasp. I spent time on a variety of desks and each desk had their own way of communicating, but despite this all their communication styles appeared effective. Senior management did not tolerate mediocrity and spoke to juniors respectfully. It was clear that several employees had a timetable arranged that allowed them to go to the gym with minimal disruption to work.

Luckily I enjoyed the desk I was on, so I would certainly consider it as a starting point for my career. My line manager was a VP and gave me advice on how I should approach my career within IB.

Citi reimbursed travel, paid for the hotel and gave as a generous lunch allowance for the week.

We had a speed networking event, an open bar with employees and a few other networking events.

Personally I would have liked one of the networking events to have been a sit down meal so that you could speak to people for a bit longer.

There is a gym in the office that a lot of employees use.

Definitely. From speaking to people on other spring programmes, it is evident that Citi's programme gives you a lot of responsibility.