RBS International Banking Summer Intern Review

I found the 10 week internship extremely enjoyable, the internship was incredibly well structured which created a fantastic balance of networking events, training, desk rotations, charity work, lunch and learn sessions, and socials which made for a throughly enjoyable experience.

At RBS you are very valued as an intern you have the opportunity to work with very senior members of the business and all are extremely willing to meet with you to talk about what they do, how that fits into the business and how they got to where they are. You are also given significant levels of responsibility and the opportunity to contribute your ideas and styles to the work you are doing.

Before joining the bank you are assigned a Buddy and a Line Manager (one for each rotation). Your Buddy acts as an informal mentor where you can field any questions you might not be comfortable asking a more senior person. Your Line Manger is responsible for offering more professional support and guidance. At RBS there is a very flat hierarchy where it is not uncommon to be working alongside directors in the work you do, personally I found the senior members to be extremely supportive, obviously sometimes it can be difficult to find time around their busy schedules but if they do have capacity I found they were more than happy to grab a coffee to discuss advice and offer support.

I was kept very busy throughout the internship, but I think this was reflective of my desire to get involved in lots of different things and push myself throughout the 10 weeks. In terms of desk work you can always look to take on more pieces of work, its a great way to speak with lots of different people across the desk and try to pick up little pieces so you can demonstrate your abilities to lots of people. There is then all the internal initiatives you can get involved with, such as charity work and organising events.

My first rotation was in Transaction Services - Supply Chain Finance, during this 4 week rotation notable levels of responsibility given were to liaise with internal and external legal counsel to refresh legal opinions, update and redesign programme MI trackers and lead an internal vendor classification piece. My second rotation was in Corporate Coverage, during this 4 week rotation notable levels of responsibility given were to update debt maturity profiles for all metal and mining clients, conduct research into interconnector markets and explore potential client impacts of a new planned interconnector, and produce two client overviews presentations which examined the historic RBS/client relationship and explored potential product opportunities for RBS Overall I feel as interns we were entrusted with significant levels of responsibility.

I am just going into my final year now so cannot answer from experience, however I believe the time management, work ethic and networking skills I developed during my 10 week internship at RBS will help me most in my final year. I also then hope that the training received and understanding of investment banking that I have developed will be able to transfer across to the modules I have chosen for my final year.

The atmosphere in the office was great, everybody was approachable, enjoyed working for RBS and were all extremely driven and hardworking.

The 10 week summer internship was exceptionally well organised, the overall structure was: Week 1 - induction and training week, lots of opportunities to learn more about what investment is and what RBS does, to network with fellow interns and current employees and have lots of fun Weeks 2-5 - rotation 1 (decided before joining based on your preferences and the preferences of the Line Managers on the desk) Weeks 5-9 - rotation 2 (again decided before joining based on your preferences and the preferences of the Line Managers on the desk) Week 10 - Firedrill project (working in teams of 5 you are given a brief on the Monday for a 'client pitch' that you have two days to prepare for an present to senior members on the wednesday) and closing interviews Alongside the formal structure there were so many networking sessions, lunch and learns, training sessions, charity and CSR days, and socials thrown in!

I believe RBS heavily invested in the summer internship intake, the 10 weeks began with an induction week dedicated to increasing our understanding of what an investment bank does and how all the different divisions tied together. We then had several training sessions focused towards developed skills across the MS Office suite. Throughout the 10 weeks we had several lunch and learn sessions, where senior figures across the RBS group would come in for 1hour and talk about their part of the group and allocated a substantial amount of time to field questions. RBS set up several networking sessions where we could network with graduates, other interns and seniors across the firm.

I have accepted a Capital Markets position with RBS for the September 2015 intake, in total around 60% of interns were offered positions. I have accepted the offer as I feel RBS has a very strong Graduate programme where unlike other investment banks the level of exposure to senior figures and levels of responsibility given will hopefully help kick start a very successful career for me in banking.

RBS organised several events across the internship, the most notable ones were Ping, Intern Sports Day and Steam and Rye, all socials had a great budget behind the bar and plenty of food on offer. Outside of organised events we would all meet for a drinks on Fridays after work.

I found my room on spareroom.com it cost me around £600 a month with all bills included. As expected socialising in London was quite expensive but the wage RBS gave us made this doable.

There are quite a lot of good places out in Shoreditch where we tended to head for a night out, which is a short walk from the Bishopsgate offices.

As previously mentioned there are so many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work, there is especially a big emphasis on charity work and CSR volunteering at RBS. In total I attending 1.5 CSR days, for this we travelled to the Greenwich Meantime Nursery where we helped build ponds, flower beds and fences for the nursery. We had a 24hr Intern Challenge which we were told about in week 1 and executed in week 9, the challenge involved working in teams of 8-10 to plan events we could do for a 24hr period to try and raise as much money as we could for charity. Our group did a joint 100 mile run and sold doughnuts and cupcakes, in total we raised over £1,500 and had great fun in doing so.