Intern Review

Thoroughly enjoyable scheme, with a good mix of vacation scheme tasks, group work, real-time work for our teams and regular social events. The people were key for making it a great few weeks, being open and friendly and immediately keen to involve me in their work. This extended to my experience out of the office, where I was involved in the football team with my supervisor and other social events with the trainees.

My supervisors kept me involved in their work from start to finish, even on some very high value and confidential deals. The rest of the team also regularly gave me work, which led to me certainly feeling valued for the time I spent in the department. Throughout this time, I was kept abreast on any news for the deals which I was working on, ensuring that I knew precisely where my contribution to the team fitted into the whole.

There was regular contact with graduate recruitment, who kept tabs on how our scheme was going and sought to deal with any concerns which we may have. Having trainee, associate and partner contact also helped to direct us towards advice from people at different levels in the firm, ensuring that it always came from the most appropriate source.

The scheme was well-structured with numerous activities and events. One small area of improvement would have been to organise the practice group talks, which were on most days, at the same time each day, perhaps during the lunch hour. This would have helped manage the expectations of our supervisors with regard to work deadlines and the times which we would be away from our desks,

Everyone in the team was keen to involve me in work, and the atmosphere was one of challenging but interesting work, which was always completed in a collegiate manner. The trainees were very busy at the beginning of my scheme, so it was a little later until I really felt I had built relations with them. However this was understandable, and by the end we had had great exposure to all of the trainees, who made a fantastic effort during the social events.

I felt the firm invested a great deal to my development, particularly as each of my supervisors worked hard to involve me in their deals and explain their work to me. Being given tasks with two partners, obviously at a high cost to the firm, also contributed to the feeling of being valued, and really helped to make me feel part of the department as a whole.

The work I was involved in was always work which a real trainee would undertake, and so in this sense I did experience life as a trainee. However, though it was thoroughly enjoyable, leaving at 5:30 for social events did seem an unrealistic expectation to have for beginning full time work at the firm. Perhaps this would have been improved had there been more scope to match the hours of our supervisors on certain days when they required an additional helping hand with their work.

I was immediately immersed in the company culture, in terms of work, social life and employee attitudes. The main things which struck me were that the firm was in fact as collegiate and open-door in its culture as it claimed, and I felt comfortable speaking to anyone at any level of the firm throughout the time of my vacation scheme.

There were numerous of these opportunities, firstly through being appointed with minders at trainee, associate and partner level. Furthermore, practice group presentations on most days allowed me to ask questions of employees in departments where I was not seated. Finally, social events outside of work allowed for an opportunity to seek advice in out-of-office contexts.

Networking and social events occurred very regularly, and I have to commend graduate recruitment and the trainee cohort in their efforts on this, The events ranged from a Thames boat tour, to karaoke bars, to climbing the O2. They were thoroughly enjoyable and also helped to build strong bonds with employees at the firm, as well as the other vac schemers.

There was a great deal of scope to take part in these activities, and outside of the vac scheme organised events I went to after-work drinks with my team on Fridays and played football for the firm team with my supervisor. I was also advised about the annual ski trips and sports tours which I could get involved in, subsidised by the firm.