Finance Intern Review

It was a very enjoyable 10 weeks. The work was challenging but the company was very impressive and the people were easy to work with. The graduate team organised a number of fun and interesting events throughout. Highlights included breakfast with the CFO and dragon boat racing.

I felt very valued by my colleagues. They were always willing to help and I was trusted with the work that I produced. Working directly with individual team members on projects was particularly useful as I learnt how they improved their accuracy and efficiency. I also felt that they were genuinely appreciative of the help I provided rather than just being 'stuck with the intern'.

My manager explained the business and individual processes very well. He was easy to get on with and easy to approach for help. The only issue was that sometimes he was very busy (as expected) so he wouldn't be able to immediately help me so I would have to remind him a few times.

At the start I didn't have too much work as it took a bit of time to get full access to all the processes. I also felt that my manager hadn't fully prepared what work I was going to be given when I arrived. However, soon I had a number of daily tasks and took on some projects which meant I had a good amount of work. My hours were only 8.45 - 6 so I wasn't overworked.

I was given quite a lot of responsibility with producing and sending high level data. Initially my manager would cross-check this with me but soon after this he trusted my accuracy and integrity. I do feel that I could have accepted a slightly higher level of responsibility however if I had needed to.

I have come from a non Financial/Economics background so have learnt a lot on the internship by just being involved in the business. I have greatly developed my Excel skills from a lot of use and a training day. I'm not sure if any of this going to help my Physics degree but if I can use any Excel in it I will now. I will continue to read a lot more on the Financial markets throughout my last year at uni however.

It seemed quite a relaxed atmosphere. Everyone had quite a lot of space,, particularly throughout August with lots of people on holiday. The dress code was not extremely strict and staff were free to talk to each other often as they were trusted to get their work done. We also had all the major sporting events on in the TVs in the office which helped the relaxed atmosphere.

Once I got to JP Morgan the internship seemed well set up. I will say that I didn't think the correspondence prior and post assessment centre was too organised, and the onboarding process wasn't the simplest. But while I was here the graduate team kept us up to date with interesting events and ideas to further our time at JP Morgan.

Compare to some other sectors such as Investor Services and Trader I don't think we needed much training. We had a number of talks from senior staff and graduates to explain to us what to expect and what was expected of us. The Excel training was also particularly useful.

I was introduced to a number of graduates and discussed how their graduate scheme is going. The company itself seems great and the rotational programme is a very good idea. Once you have completed this programme it seems like you are in a very good position within the company and there are a lot of options to move within the company. The only possible issue is that completing a Finance graduate position at a big 4 company might be a bit easy as they focus more on helping you complete the Chartered Accountancy degree alongside your work with a larger proportion of graduates.

We would normally go out for a couple drinks on Fridays but not too much else. A couple of good graduate events including the large event on the last Thursday.

I lived at home so N/A, but if not it would have been quite expensive.

In Canary Wharf so expensive but you've got all of London to go to.

Lots of sports clubs available but maybe not the easiest for interns to join in with. Dragon boat racing and the Corporate Challenge run were good ideas though. I did think that a sports or socialising event between the Finance interns and graduates should have been officially organised by the recruitment team as that is a great way to meet the graduates and ask them questions you maybe wouldn't inside JP Morgan.