This review was submitted over 4 years ago, so some of the information it contains may no longer be relevant.
Rating
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The Role
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The Company
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The Culture
- 1. To what extent did you enjoy your work placement or internship?
- 2. To what extent did you feel valued by your colleagues?
- 3. To what extent were you given support and guidance by management/your supervisor(s)?
- 4. How busy were you on a daily basis?
- 5. How much responsibility were you given during your placement?
- 6. To what extent did/will the skills you developed, and training you received, assist you in your degree studies and beyond?
- 7. What was the general atmosphere in your office?
- 8. How well organised was the overall work placement or internship set up?
- 9. In terms of personal training and development, to what extent did the company or firm invest in you?
- 10. What were the perks on your work placement?
- 11. How appealing are future employment prospects within the organisation?
- 12. Was there a good social scene amongst any fellow placement students/colleagues?
- 13. What was the cost of living and socialising in the area you worked in?
- 14. What was the Nightlife like in the area you worked?
- 15. Were there many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work?
The Role
Really enjoyed the work - learnt a huge amount in 10 weeks. I got to get involved with some interesting projects although still had to do some occasional admin things which was less fun.
Definitely felt valued to some extent. Felt like I was adding value to their work and they appreciated this too and let me know that what I was doing was helpful.
Regular meetings with my line manager who was very supportive and willing to give his time to let me ask questions etc. I don't think everyone was so lucky though. We also had mid-term evaluations and an end of internship evaluation.
Really varied on a daily basis. Some days I would have very little to do and could be bored, other days I would have quite a lot to do. Overall though, a decent amount of work and never felt overburdened/pressured.
Not much responsibility due to the role I was working as. I think in my rotation it would have been difficult to give me a lot of reponsibility since it is a client-facing business.
While my degree is irrelevant to finance, the things I have learnt will definitely be useful in life in terms of both career and managing my personal finance. It was a great experience and will be recognised by non financial institutions too.
The Company
Really great atmosphere. Everyone is extremely friendly and willing to give their time to talk about their careers etc over a coffee. People are generally very approachable.
Organised very well. Some IT issues, however these were sorted within a few weeks. Joining and training were both very useful and a lot of the online training was actually quite helpful (although the compliance things, less fun to do!)
My managers and other people on the team spent a lot of time with me helping me understand the business more. Other people in the division were also very open to helping me learn more about their roles etc.
Subsidised Canteen
I think the chances of being employed are fairly high in comparison to some other places. Appealing too because they run a really great graduate rotation program.
The Culture
Good social scene. Almost weekly team drinks and among the other interns we usually all went for drinks every Friday. Other divisions though had even more frequent social events.
Although the canteen is subsidised, it is still quite expensive. Restaurants in Canary Wharf are also all fairly pricey so a lot of people brought in food from home and heated up food.
No nightlife in this area. Though people would leave Canary Wharf and go out in more central places.
Since we were only there for a short time, not too many opportunities. They ran an Art Club night for people interested in art but other than that interns didn't really get too involved. As I understand there are quite a lot of opportunities for actual employees though.
Details
Internship (1 Month+)
Banking
London
August 2015