Intern in Markets- Trading Review

The internship was great! It was very hectic from time to time but the amounts you learn is incredible, they are not kidding when they say that the learning curve is steep! Other than that the people at the firm is great, nothing like you would expect bankers to be from what you read in the news/ online etc.

The people were really one of the best aspects of the internship. Everyone is extremely friendly and go to a great length to make you feel welcome. Everyone is very open to answering questions which was very comforting coming to a completely new workplace. The work we did was not particularly value-adding but the colleagues still made you feel valued.

On a daily basis you were quite busy. The day starts early and there is a lot of news to read up on. The day then starts and you have to stay updated on news and discuss current events with people at the same time as you work on your tasks. The time-frame of assessments you are given varies from one day, to a week to 2 months so you really need to learn to prioritize to get everything done in time.

The responsibilities we were given as interns were quite limited because of regulations. We did however get to help with some daily tasks of more of a back-office nature. The responsibilities given were more towards yourself; all tasks had a deadline and you constantly want to perform, so in that regard; the responsibilities were quite significant.

The training and the skills I developed might be relevant for further studies in the sense that you understand how things are done in real life. You don't just see financial concepts as an equation on a paper but you see them being created, discussed and traded which is something you will never learn about to the same extent in school.

The general atmosphere in the office was really friendly. Everyone was very open and approachable for question on all kinds of matters. The office could be quite fast-paced and stressful from time to time but you just had to learn to deal with that and save your questions for a later time.

The organisation of the internship was really good. It was really impressive to see how much time and effort was put into making the internship program as good as possible. The training and all the intern-activities were very well planned and thought trough. Of course there was some aspects that could be more organized (like technology access and such) but overall the organisation was really impressive.

As previously mentioned, the firm put a lot of time and effort into the internship program. The only thing that could be improved would be to have some continuous training throughout the internship. As it is now there is a lot of learning by doing which is great but that only means that you only learn the very things you need to know instead of getting a broader picture.

Future employment prospectus are very appealing. The firm offers a great graduate-training program which almost every single intern is quite eager to join. Pretty much all full-time employees first started with the internship so it seems to be the logical entry-point for joining the company. There also seems to be a good ratio of people getting hired after the internship so the future employment prospects are not just appealing but also promising.

The social scene amongst the other interns was really good. Everyone was really friendly and generally everyone got along very well. In the beginning there was a lot of social events at parties but as the work got more intensive this tended to calm down but picked up pace again towards the end of the internship.

Non-existing except for the occasional after-work.

There were some opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work. We did have a "corporate social responsibility day" where all the interns at the bank spend one day outdoors doing volunteer work. There are a lot of clubs you can join within the firm but these seems to be more targeted towards full-time employees rather than interns.