RBS Commercial and Private Banking Spring Intern Review

I had a really great time at the RBS Spring Week! I would definitely recommend it. We got to rotate around some of the different areas of banking and find out more e.g. I did private banking & wealth management, corporate coverage, asset finance and capital & transaction management. I met lots of great people throughout the week and had plenty of opportunities to network with current employees and learn more about banking and RBS/Coutts.

I definitely felt valued. Your ideas and thoughts are definitely respected and valued by RBS. Even when we had to do tasks or give ideas to employees - no idea was considered to be a bad idea.

We had plenty of opportunities to ask questions and find out information. The business representatives who we met each taught us a bit about their area of banking and gave us their contact details in case we had any more questions. We were each given a booklet filled with plenty of information, including a schedule for the week, addresses for each of the work shadowing placements to which we needed to travel and tips for the assessment tasks.

I definitely feel like I have a much better understanding of some of the areas of banking now. The fact that you have to rotate around different sections of banking is good because it gives you an opportunity to build your knowledge of finance and better understand what some of the roles involve. We were required to put together group presentations, which was a really good opportunity to practise our team working skills. I personally already knew what I wanted to do but the good thing about the week is that if you already know what you want to do, it helps you to establish what you definitely would NOT like to do. It was also a good way to establish whether RBS is right for you (and vice versa).

On the first day, we spent time learning about RBS and meeting business representatives. We were put into teams with a business representative for a fun quiz, which was a really good ice-breaker and way for us to meet each other. We had two days of work-shadowing, working at different places in the morning and afternoon of each day. This was really useful and fun. Other than that, we had one day for assessment activities and a final day on which we gave our group presentations, had a chance to speak to lots of current graduates from different areas of the bank and did an activity which involved helping disadvantaged young people with employability skills (as charity and corporate social responsibility are important to RBS).

Really good. Everyone else on the internship was friendly and nobody was left out or excluded. All of the employees who we came across throughout the week seemed genuinely happy to work at RBS and it seemed like a really nice work environment. It wasn't as intimidating as one might expect.

It seemed that so much work had gone into selecting each of us for the Spring Week and even planning activities for us that they were keen to keep us so they gave us plenty of support e.g. one of the assessments was a presentation so on the first day, we were given some tips for giving a good presentation. We were given plenty of opportunities to spend time work shadowing and meet with current employees, which definitely helped each of us to learn a lot. I think that the firm also wanted to ensure that we had all of the information possible in order to conclude whether we were actually interested in banking or RBS.

It was definitely very helpful. We were given lots of information throughout the week and also a realistic experience of the hours involved e.g. my day was typically from about 8am-8pm because we had extra preparation to do after work (e.g. group meetings for the presentation) but most employees said that their day was 8am-6pm unless they had an important deadline, in which case they might be at work from 8am-2am (18 hours) for a couple of days.

Meeting current employees gave us a great understanding of company culture - everyone seemed friendly and happy in their work. Obviously we couldn't meet everyone who works their but I didn't ever meet or see anyone who wasn't friendly or a relatively decent person, even when people I was work shadowing introduced me to their bosses or teams. We also learnt a lot about RBS values throughout the week and the ways in which they're enforced e.g. apparently meetings sometimes start with being asked what you did to meet the RBS values that week.

I already knew what I wanted to do and I got to shadow 2 girls in that role (we even got to attend a meeting!) so I had the opportunity to ask a lot of questions and find out a lot about the things involved with the job, even the amount of extra work and qualifications involved.

We were not paid for the RBS Spring Week but expenses were reimbursed (e.g. the cost of travelling to and from job shadowing and the cost of travelling from wherever you are to the actual spring week) and if you live outside of the area (outside of London or Edinburgh), they provided accommodation and reimbursed the cost of food up to a limited amount.

We had networking events/opportunities every day of the spring week - it was great!

Really fun. We had networking drinks on the first evening, followed by a quiz in teams with employees and plenty of further networking opportunities throughout the week.

We were made aware of some of the 'employee networks' at the firm (kind of like societies at uni) and from speaking to employees, it seemed that some of the employee networks had sports teams and organised different activities. Team drinks and dinners also seemed like a regular thing, which is really nice. RBS also quite heavily encourage charity and CSR e.g. apparently every RBS graduate is required to complete 24 working hours of volunteering (though I'm not sure if this applies to subsidiaries like Coutts).

Definitely. I learnt a lot about banking and RBS. From speaking to other people, it also seemed to really help them to confirm what they wanted to do and whether RBS is right for them.