ER Intern Review

The placement was a really fun couple of months, everyone worked really hard to make sure that all of us interns were having a good time and contributing real work to the company.

I felt like I was doing real work and I was actually helping the team I was placed in. I had feedback saying that I was a valuable part of the team and that my line manager could trust me with work when she was out of the office.

My line manager was fantastic, she had been on the graduate scheme at Barclays and she gave me really constructive feedback and supported me in the areas that I was struggling in. As a result of her help I really feel as though I grew through the placement.

The first few days on my desk I did not have much to do but once I had been there for a few days I was given plenty of real work and although I was busy I did not feel overwhelmed.

I was treated like any other junior member of staff, I was allowed to get involved with projects involving sensitive information and trusted to keep everything I learnt confidential. I was also asked to lead calls with senior members of staff as a representative of my team. I felt really trusted because of this.

I cannot emphasis enough how much I learnt through this internship. The softer skills I learnt in terms of personal branding, managing upwards and general office etiquette I would not have learnt in any other summer job I could have done. Barclays put a lot of effort into giving us training to ensure that we were valuable members of staff whilst we were there.

The general atmosphere was quite serious but friendly and open. I never felt that I couldn't ask a question or that I was in the way.

Other than a couple of small hiccups the placement went very smoothly and I was given real work and gained real skills and insight into HR in the financial services industry.

All of the interns had 3 days of training before we were placed on our desks and there were many sessions with senior business people throughout the internship. It felt as though Barclays really cared about our personal development and wanted us to do as well as possible throughout the internship.

I was offered a place on their graduate scheme and I am really looking forward to starting working at Barclays full time.

Barclays put on quite a few events to give all the interns chance to socialise. Barclays has three offices in Canary Wharf and I was in one of the smaller offices and so I missed out on being in the big office where a lot of people would get lunch together and things like that. There is nothing Barclays could have done about this as different teams are in different places and I loved the team I was placed with.

Canary Wharf is an expensive place but Barclays accounted for that in the pay we received and it was affordable enough to go for drinks or dinner after work.

Canary wharf is busy from about 5-10pm but then it is pretty quiet as people go home, however it is only a few minutes from central London which has the best nightlife.

Barclays has various sports clubs but there was not really a chance to get involved in them whilst we were there as the programme of events put on by campus recruitment kept us too busy for that. We were invited to various talks and networking events throughout the internship.