Credit Risk Summer Analyst Review

Loved everything about the job - the actual role itself is very interesting (Credit Risk) and the atmosphere is surprisingly friendly. Don’t listen to the people who say that J.P. Morgan has a stereotypical American investment banking culture as it is completely untrue. The internship has taught me a lot but also opened my eyes up to the life of an Analyst.

As soon as possible after training classes and workshops, I have been contributing to the team by doing real work from the offset. If I wasn’t valued by my colleagues, I would be given work that is not important – but that has not been the case. Working on live deals has been a plus during this internship.

My line manager has been extremely helpful with guidance around the workplace, but also support for everyday things. As we sit opposite from each other, we have regular conversations about everything from what I am currently working on to weekend plans! I feel that the support culture here has been much better than my experience at other banks.

As with any job in investment banking, I have been pretty busy on a daily basis – but this is something that I find thrilling about the job. It is the excitement one gets from having to multitask and deal with pressure that attracted me to the role in the first place, and the internship definitely has not disappointed.

As mentioned previously, I have been working on live deals and doing real tasks a full time Analyst would be doing at the bank. However, given that we are only here for 10 weeks, it is difficult to really take full reign and responsibility of a client, since this is more of a long term role. Having said this, I have had as much responsibility as possible.

I have definitely developed skills associated with analysing the credit of various clients and improved my Excel skills. Whether this is useful in my degree studies remains to be seen as I think that university work is rather different – it is more about self-study rather than completing actual tasks. However, I would say that I have learnt to prioritise tasks better and have had more experience in working under pressure.

The general atmosphere within the office has been fantastic, and not what I expected, if I am completely honest. I would have expected a much tougher and cut throat environment, but that could not be further from the truth. Of course you are expected to do a good job, but there are always people to guide you along the way.

The internship has been extremely organised and this is thanks to both HR and the people who run the internship. From the offset, there has been a structured programme in which we have a timetable of all events, such as networking drinks or teach-in sessions. Moreover, the IT side of things was set up extremely quickly too, which is a bonus.

The internship starts with a week of intensive training provided by an external company. I imagine this to be very expensive, as it is top class training. Along with this, there have been further teach-in sessions to help explain the further nuances of the division, in which various members of the division have invested their time to provide these to you.

I would love to take the full time offer and I consider the prospects within the organization to be fantastic. A big bonus of working in a firm as big as J.P. Morgan is that there is huge flexibility with what you can do. I would say that there are countless opportunities to what you can do within the firm, and J.P. will try to accommodate you as long as you show potential.

It is London, so the social scene is great, but the working hours have kind of limited interns to how much we can actually socialise outside of work. There have been a few social events where interns have got together, but I would say that the nature of the job has limited this. It has been good nonetheless though.

Again, this is London – probably the most expensive city in the country with a pint of beer costing a hefty £5. The cost of living has been expensive too, with rent being more than double other areas of the country, but I suppose that we are more than compensated for that with our salary. Cost of living is definitely one of the prices to pay when being in London.

London nightlife, as you can imagine, is fantastic. However, as mentioned previously in a few of the answers, the cost of nights out is very significant and the nature of the job has meant that people have not been too keen on going on nights out. I cannot complain about the options available to me though, as there are countless options for where to go.

There are definitely opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work, but these are limited when you are only interning at the bank for 10 weeks. There is a CSR day in which all the interns participate in, but I know that there are also other sports and societies within the bank. If joining the bank full time, it would be easier to join these societies compared to an intern.