Summer Student Review

Loved it! - From the onset it was clear the firm wanted me to work on client related work and keen to give me fair flavour of different practice areas. The variety in work helped rouse further interest in the same and zeroed monotony of tasks. Overall, the work was split roughly 60-40 between Trustee and Investment consulting helping paint a fair picture of each practice area in my mind. The Investment gave me breadth of work, while Trustee Consulting gave me depth of work allowing me to improve my own skillset across different areas. Aside from this healthy feedback and criticism from colleagues allowed me constantly evolve my professional skills and etiquette for which I was given a multitude of opportunities commencing with: Presentations, organising of socials and socialising at company organised events.

Both the Investment and Trustee Consulting teams ensured I was included in all team discussions and meetings and their easy-going attitude helped me ease into my role, dispel nerves and start asking questions. I also got to observe the different dynamics of each of the teams clearly.

Aside from own mentor I was given a license to approach (read pester) any colleague who had or hadn't assigned me a task and seek help. Upon such approaches my queries were wholly addressed and I was also given a good base on how to approach the problem should it arise again. My mentor supervised me during the first two weeks of the internship after which due to the sheer variety of tasks I started approaching the team members who had assigned me the tasks. This also became a short and quick manner for receiving feedback and injecting that into my work routine.

The minutes during which I didn't have a client task to undertake or a summer assignment to complete were few. In most cases there was ample amount of work to keep me occupied and on the odd occasion that I didn't have much to take a quick email to the team members would see them, benevolently, oblige and make me feel like a permanent member of the team!! This however is the way I would rather have had it. Proactively seeking work in dry days allowed me to (almost) complete a task for each member of the team(s) and thereby allowed me to establish a rapport with the majority of them.

From week one I was briefed about client work and client deadlines, initially surprising me with the extent of responsibility put on my shoulders - with constant supervision and support though! I was lucky enough to have portions of my reports checked and subsequently sent out to the clients: significant portions the first time.

These eight weeks have, fundamentally, given me an incisive insight into the functioning of an actuarial/pensions consultancy - not skewed to only the Trustee side of things but also the Investment consulting side of the industry. As for the tools and skills picked up, I believe I now have a fairer idea of how to approach a problem in the same field, given the need. In addition to the client/office side of things, multiple presentations in front of a sizeable audience of differing backgrounds has allowed me to test my abilities to address larger groups. From the technical side, my Investment Consulting project allowed me to consider different perspectives of movements in the economic market, followed by a requirement to explain it concisely and clearly: another aspect of the job which I believe I have picked up.

Light, relaxed friendly and most importantly welcoming; got first hand experience of what Barnett Waddingham mean by their friendly culture with lots of personalities and characters populating their teams which complemented the tasks very well!

The summer internship was designed specifically to give us a chance to experience client work and complete certain exercises. In this vein I wasn't even remotely disappointed as there was always something to do and something to complete. Tasks progressively got harder and varied allowing me to constantly feed back my performance and improve.

My colleagues were very open and uninhibited with their feedback regarding client work and professional skills. In the first two weeks there were regular training sessions arranged to bring us up to date on Actuarial valuations and calculations that we may come across on our internship. We were even allowed to sit in the CPD sessions of more senior colleagues and get an actual insight into the events.

Very!

All employees seemed to know each other very well in and outside the office and there was a healthy social scene in terms of company outings and participation in local sports clubs due to residence in the area.

The cost of living was slightly on the higher end but that also translated to some of the nicer areas to visit and socialise at.

Take your pick: varied.

Due to the timing of the internship Barbecues were a frequent happening. Again due to the timing of the internship we got an opportunity to get involved in a company (inter-office) football tournament in which I stood out for my ability to remain cheerful despite humiliating losses from positions of control - this was duly noted and marked against the suitable competencies. Missing a tap-in into an empty goal, slipping and bumping into my own teammates didn't get me fired. This was attributed to a high tolerance level of the firm. Aside from this office socials like lunch/dinners and drinks on weekends were the norm and allowed me to ease in to the role.