Investment Banking Summer Analyst Review

I enjoyed the people I worked with and the variety of work that I did. Not only was I involved with different people in different teams doing different types of work, but my role in each project changed and I experienced a multitude of different amounts of responsibility.

I felt that colleagues valued my work when I could prove that I paid attention to detail and delivered high quality work despite my inexperience. I would say that most of my interactions were with people I worked with quite closely, so I feel that if you worked in a very narrow role it could be hard to meet a great number of people, but you have the ability to create strong relationships with the people you do meet.

I felt that my superiors we all very approachable, whether they were a year or ten years older then me.

In investment banking, the workflow is very unpredictable. This means that you can have some days that are extremely busy and some days when you are waiting for more work. But the best thing to do on those slower days is to try to network and get to know your colleagues better.

I felt that I was given responsibility when I could show that I could do certain tasks or knew a project well.

I think that the technical and presentation skills will be a great asset going into my final year of engineering school. Working with numbers and excel is a skill that crosses over nicely into my engineering studies. The soft skills of working with people and having experience interacting with superiors and managing a workload are great assets to have in future jobs and in my studies. Nothing that I learned was so specific that it could only be used in a narrow context.

Being an open plan office, you definitely did not feel out of the action. It was easy to chat with people and a very practical way of working.

The internship was well organised with a very specific and intense training week along with constant formal feedback and networking events throughout the summer.

Considering our internship was only 8 weeks of work and the company had us in an additional 1 week of training, there is a very big emphasis on skill development and training in the firm.

I think that regardless of getting a job offer with the firm, the good feedback system means that even if there is not a future opportunity within the firm for me, they would be willing and able to write letters of recommendation on my behalf for future employers.

I think that one of the best outcomes of my internship was building a relationship with the rest of my class. Having a large pool of interns in a similar position to you is a great way to work, versus being the only young person in an office full of much older people.

The cost of living in London of course is extremely expensive, from rent to food, however, that is the cost of entry in one of the world's truly great cities with an amazinly diverse population, with an endless selection of activities and green space.

I am not a nightlife person, but there was a fair amount of bars and clubs in the area around our office which our firm took advantage of with networking opportunities between the interns and different teams.

The firm did a good job organising events for interns to both network with teams and with each other. At least twice (sometimes three or four) times a week there would be some activity or drinks which were a great opportunity to meet people.