Investment Banking Summer Analyst Review

All in all the internship has been an enriching experience which helped me to identify whether investment banking and the specific team I have interened with were a good fit to me and my career plans. The internship was really well structured in terms of training and learning experience - First 3 days of general training were followed by team specific training throughout the week. It must be said that this team training was organised by the teams individually or the line manager. Hence, other teams might have done it differently. The first few weeks of the internship were introductory, then in the middle you were staffed on many projects and got deal exposure and towards the end you had the chance to work on a case study, testing your understanding and giving you the chance to do a whole pitchbook byyourself including all the modeling and technical reasonings. Overall I give it 9 points as I wished that there would have been more social events for the interns to connect. However, my team had an incredible culture and it made my whole experience enjoyable.

The team was incredibly helpful and very keen to help out with any questions. They also expected you to be proactive and to ask a lot of questions to show that you are really hungry to learn. Of course, it was important to find the right balance in asking questions and finding out answers by yourself as people were really busy and didn't have time to answer all of your questions. Some of the team members took really a long time to explain things to be from the basics and I really appreciated that knowing that they had a lot of work to catch up. This showed me that the team was very open and ready to help no matter what.

The guidance and support throughout the internship really depended a lot on which team you were as every team and line manager organised this internship programme differently. I really liked how my team organised lerning sessions with Analysts and Associates so that we could all learn together. The buddy programme helped a lot to have a person who looked after you and the mentoring programme helped to have someone to speak to who is more experienced. There could still have been more support from the line manager at the beginning, but in general it was a fantastic experience.

On average I had the perfect balance between being pushed to perform more and giving a bit of free time to let the learned things settle. Day to day I had extremely busy days and some days were a bit quieter. But in general it was very well balanced with the difficulty being increased throughout the internship. Especially the case study at the end helped a lot to understand the whole processes and really prepare something from scratch. This helped a lot to build fundamental knowledge and to go through the whole process completely by yourself. The case study is were I learned the most and I liked how challenging it was. I had to learn to manage my time as we were expected to do the case study after our day-to-day tasks have been finished. This required to stay up longer and work harder and more efficient. The whole process gave you a good learning experience on how to manage time, how to deal with pressure and how to be efficient.

I was given more responsibilty towards the end. At the beginning I first had to prove myself and gain the trust and towards the end I was given more difficult tasks. I don't think that I was running something completely alone as my work had to be constantly checked which is important as there should be no mistakes when work is shown to a director or MD. The only thing I had completely control and responsibilty of was my case study which was a good amount of responsibilty. I was included in processes and meetings and I could make suggestions whenever it was appropraite. I was taken seriously by both juniors and seniors and people valued my work and my comments.

I must say that this has been by far the best internship experience I have ever had. In terms of learning and work - I got even more out of it than ever expected. I was pushed beyond my limits and discovered new abilities. I felt that I became stronger and smarter and I was proud to have achieved a lot at the end of my internship. It was a balance between being challenged and enjoying learning new things. It definitely was a very enriching experience both for my personal and my professional life.

It was a very dynamic atmosphere - full of energy, action and fun. I liked how hard working people were and I liked how connected the team was. We went out for drinks on Fridays and had team lunches. It really was a great experience between working hard and relaxing and having fun together.

It was in general excpetionally well organised, however, I felt that there were no social or sports events where interns could connect. For example there could have been a bowling event only for the IBD people or a Sports Day. There have been a lot of learning sessions and networking events, however, there were always very formal events. Nearly none unformal events. However this doesn't mean that it was not organised well. Also, I would recommend choosing more exciting venues like the Tate Modern Art Museum for a final event and more exclusive/special venues in the city centre.

I felt that in terms of personal training and development the firm definitely invested a lot in us. The quality of the learning sessions was very high and the variety was good. However, I did not like the venues the events were hosted. If there would have been an auditorium or a round place with a big and very wide screen, then people could have seen everything better. Most of the sessions were in the cafeteria or in a smaller meeting room where we sat behind each other in rows.

The future employment prospects are very good. I believe Barclays is a great place to start your career and the training and exposure you get is excellent.

There was a very good social scene when we got together. However this was very rare. Otherwise everyone behaved extremely professional and was very funny and nice.

It really depended a lot on how much free time you had and how tired you were. In general there a really great places to go out, however, be prepared to pay a lot for drinks, food and entry.

Canary Wharf ... hmm no real nightlife. In the offices - yes.

We had a citizenship project which gave a lot of opportunity to get to know what charities in London do. I was invited to a really nice event with a US Ambassador coming to present. So I belive it depended on what you make out of the opportunities presented to you. There could have been more events with other institutions. I think the events should be more creative and exceptional rather than being usually in a lecture style followed by Q&A. For example different themes like Mexican themes, or other interesting mottos.