Intern Review

It was the best experience of my life. I am passionate about stocks and investing so this was the perfect place to be at. I actually got to do some real work, which was later implemented by the team I was on, so I didn't feel like I was just given something to fill my time with but I actually made a valuable contribution to the teams I was on, which says a lot given that compared to the people that work there coming straight out of uni you have close to zero experience.

I couldn't believe how friendly people can actually be. I mean you wouldn't expect senior executives working 12 hours a day to take 30 minutes or an hour to answer your questions or teach you, but everyone did. You could always go up to anyone and simply ask them a question if you wanted to and you got a friendly and insightful answer back. I got to use the resources of other people from the company quite a lot on my projects and they were always helpful.

Depends on the team you're on and the kind of work you're doing but people always point you in the right direction. Nobody holds your hand but if you have to do a new thing that you know nothing about then people will take all the time necessary to make sure you get it right. One thing I was always told was that there are no stupid questions and curiosity is a good thing. As an example, aside from my main project on my second rotation I was building a very complex excel model with derivatives and the person supervising me would regularly spend an hour each day talking to me about my work and helping me get to grips with it (which was excellent cosidering the kind of maths involved in it was beyond my level).

I was very busy but that is to be expected. If you work in finance you won't have a 9-5 schedule. The learning curve is very steep and if you feel you have too much free time on your hands you probably aren't working or learning enough.

You get given as much responsibility as you show willingness to take on. So if you get given a project you're left to your own devices but you get support along the way. It's your job to ask for it though and if you ask for more things to do and show commitment you will be given the responsibility.

I am doing finance so what I did at BlackRock was very relevant. It's great to see the sutff you read about applied in practice and the people there even promised to help me with my dissertation which by now looks like it will be on fund performance.

It was always a very enjoyable atmosphere to work in and people did joke or chat, but don't expect a constant party. This is a serious business with serious people, but enjoying what you do in a great atmoshpere is encouraged.

There were hickups along the way because some of the HR turnover. So things like bloomberg training that would have made our life easier didn't get arranged. There were also some issues with putting trades through for the portfolio challenge and the exact objectives of that challenge, but overall the internship was well structured. We had set projects to do and there were lunch and learns every week so we got to know a lot fo the business.

Considering you are only an intern and there for 10 weeks the company invests in you a lot. Everyone takes time to answer your question and your views are listened to. We were arranged some MS Office training and did some personality profiling in the first days, and you learn a lot on the job.

I haven't heard back yet but I am very hopeful. If I receive an offer I'll definitely accept.

We tried to go out as often as we could, but considering you do work a lot you can't do it every day. There were also some events organised by the company, so overall a good mix. The interns got along really well with each other so there was a great atmoshpere.

It's London, what do you expect? It's going to be expensive unless you want to take the train to work for 4 hours every day so you can live at the edge of London where it's cheaper.

Again, it's London. Nightlife is great but only if you can make time for it.

There always seems to be somethig going on and the company organised some activities outside work as well.