Risk Intern Review

I really enjoyed my time at Lloyds and feel that the team really valued my input. The whole experience has been amazing, as all the London interns are housed together, and there are plenty of activities and events organised by teams in the office and by other interns to ensure that we settle in quickly and make the most of the opportunities available here.

One of the best aspects of my internship was how welcomed I felt by my team. My line manager has been like a mentor to me, and I think that she will continue to be, long after I have left the company. Although no other interns joined my team, there were plenty of placement students who joined in the same week as I, so I had lots of people around my age to work with.

I had weekly meetings with my manager which gave me all the support and guidance I needed in my day to day activities, and they were also very pro-active in helping me to arrange shadowing and insight activities across the business and providing me with connections. My development was very well structured and the expectations of me were clearly set out throughout the internship, so I was always aware of how well I was performing.

How busy I was depended enormously from day to day. If I'd had a chance to catch up with my project manager, I would have plenty to do, but without instruction from him it was difficult to begin on next steps. Some days were quite slow with work, though this may have been partly my fault for not asking for more work from other team members during these periods. Other days were very busy if I had presentations to finish and a lot to do on my project, but I never had so much work that I had to stay late or anything.

I was given my own project within our team, which has a big impact on the business and was described as high profile by other members of the team. My project manager devised the structure and methodology for this project, but once I had received his instructions, I was in charge of the implementation and data analysis. I felt like a valued team member and had the same amount of responsibility as any other analyst in the team.

The work I have completed in my internship may not prove useful for the rest of my degree, but has been invaluable in giving me work experience for the future. I now have a better understanding of the banking industry, how to work in a business environment, Microsoft Office skills (particularly in Excel) and even advanced coding software skills. Another important aspect of the internship is the network you build by shadowing other business areas and connecting with other interns.

My office was fairly laid back in that you could chat to people at their desks from time to time, but there was still a strong element of work throughout the day. The team was very well linked, and during my time we had a few team events with free meals, or drinks after work, and even a training which spanned over 2 days,

The internship is organised centrally but the structure depends largely on your team. My manager was very well organised so I knew exactly what I would be doing, and I had a project to finish by the end of my placement, but other interns do not have the same structure as this. All London interns were given accommodation together in student halls.

I was given access to coding software, which was a significant investment in my development and an opportunity for me to really stretch my skills and learn something new during my placement. I was also granted access to training days when necessary for my role in the team, and taken along to many team events.

The only option which follows straight on from the 10 week internship is a referral to the graduate scheme. This referral is automatically for the same stream in which you did the internship, although you can ask to switch if you receive an offer. I am not sure how easy it is to switch, which is slightly inconvenient, as the internship is where you learn more about other divisions and which one you prefer. Also, as a 1 year placement student you may also be offered a role as an analyst for after you graduate, whereas we are only eligible for the grad scheme.

As all the interns were housed together, we made use of social media to organise events and it was very easy to socialise with other interns. Other colleagues also made an effort to organise things for team members, but the majority of my socialising was with other interns who I lived with, interns in my charity team, and placement students in my work team.

I lived in central London so it was very expensive. Lloyds paid for the accommodation which was very helpful, but I still had to cover transport, and lived a 45 minute walk from the office. Food, drinks and going out in London is not at all cheap, but the fact that accommodation was covered by the company really helped to lessen the blow.

There was plenty of Nightlife available to us in London, and post work drinks is also very popular here. Interns regularly organised nights out at the weekend and the options were endless - the only problem was, again, prices. There is no shortage of things to do here if you have enough funds for it.

Things like this weren't publicised that much at work, apart from the Intern Charity Challenge which was really pushed to us by the Emerging Talent team. Much of the activities we did outside of work were organised by ourselves, rather than provided to us by the company.