Industrial Placement Review

I finally found what I wanted to do. This placement in Trading is going further than what I expected before joining. This is my fourth internship (we do a lot in French studies), and this is by far the best experience. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in trading on derivatives.

I joined a very busy team. So during the day everyone is very focused on what they are doing and communication is often directly linked to the activity or workflow. Fortunately, work does not stop after market close, but it is more quiet so this when you can have valuable conversations and feedback about you.

I joined a very busy team on a daily basis. It is quite hard to have a chat or to take time to have explanations when the market is open but when you stay after the close you can easily spend some time to ask questions that you have. Definitely be proactive, they can't read in your mind. If there is something you don't get if you don't make the effort to ask and go toward people, you won't learn much.

Extremely busy, especially since I was also integrated to all the activities of the Summer Internship on top of the all tasks I have to run for my desk. It was quite challenging during the first few weeks since I was also still learning how to run the process I do as well as getting more familiar with all the systems and speadsheets. I rated 9 because it is exactly what I was looking for in term of activity, time flies and even if the hours are pretty long you don't feel them at all.

I would have never expected so much responsibility for a temporary role. I am not working on a side project for my desk. I am fully integrated to the daily workflow on my desk. The processes and spreadsheets I run have a direct impact on their activity.

The team I joined manages a lot of different types of products on a variety of asset classes. You can find options, and delta one products on multi-asset underlyings. You can also mix that with specific types of strategies on those baskets of underlyings (like risk control ones for example). There is plenty of things you can learn, and the time of the placement is certainly not enough to look at everything.

Given the environment, high speed and intense activity, it was a really good atmosphere in my group. You have to be quite focus during market hours but after that you can easily enjoy a chat and a laugh with people around.

Placements are fully integrated to the activities of the summer interns, and they are plenty of them! My favorites were of course the social events, and every week they were some wrap ups about what happens in the market which I really enjoyed.

We had a lot of sessions organised ranging from personal developments, business skills, business culture, mentoring programs and so on. We had at least one session per weeks and sometimes several on the same day.

I would love to come back. Trading is what I want to do. The company is doing well, the offices are very well located, and they are soon moving to brand new offices. How can you not be appealed!

Yes, they were drinks at least every week among us. The people in the intern class were all pretty nice and really enjoyed the social events and drinks we had. I met some great people and I'll make sure to keep in touch with them even after the internship/placement is over.

Well in Central London everything is quite expensive, but you are well compensated for a placement so you can afford it.

I did not get out much around the office, but you are in East Central London, enough said. Shoreditch is 10 mins away by walk and if you don't like it you can take the subway.

I was doing quite long hours, and given they are no breaks in market hours you can;t really do that. Opportunities exist though and I saw several communications promoting them but given my role and position I could not really participate in them.