Spring Intern Review

The spring week at HSBC was three days long as opposed to the usual five days at other banks. It was enjoyable and opened my eyes into the various divisions within an investment bank. I would say that the main disappointment was that no work shadowing or desk rotations were allowed, due to confidentiality complications.

HSBC did not pay us for the spring week, but they did put all of the interns in four star hotels with a £20 daily budget for dinner, which was more than generous. They also included a minibus for travel between the hotel and the bank, which was very thoughtful of the firm and helped us to feel valued.

There was not much guidance nor support available during the spring week but this was not really necessary as the spring week is more for interns to learn via presentations done by people from various divisions rather than actual tasks that needed to be done. As such, although not much was offered, it was not needed in the first place.

The skills and knowledge that I gained from the spring week are not very applicable to my degree studies as they are more associated with finding out the details and workings of an investment bank and the industry that they sit in, rather than academic knowledge that I would be able to use at university.

Despite the spring week being short, I would say that the programme was well structured. We had talks and presentations from various divisions within the bank and also other activities such as trading simulations and operations games etc. Like I said before, the only real let down was that there was not any opportunity to shadow.

The general atmosphere was great. I was afraid of the spring week being full of the stereotypical type of people who work in banking, but it was not like that at all. The universities people came from seemed to be very narrow (the target unis being dominant) but the majority of the interns were very down to earth and friendly.

Mentioned previously.

It is very difficult to actually find out what the full time role would be day to day. The possibility to work shadow would have helped with this, but this was taken out of the equation at HSBC. I would say that I definitely have a better idea of what it is like to work in a full time role at HSBC, but it would be naïve to say that I know for sure.

In my opinion, I think that the thing banks most tend to focus on during spring weeks is selling their culture, as most of the ‘banking knowledge’ that is taught would be the same for any spring week at any bank. As a result, HSBC sold their culture very well as a great place to work with great culture. At the same time, any bank would do the same.

Prior to the spring week, I wanted to get into investment banking – this is why I applied in the first place. Going through the spring week has not really changed my mind about this, but I would say that I am definitely going to continue my interest in the industry after going through various spring weeks, including this one.

Hotel and dinner.

There were several opportunities to meet with employees at the firm and these were done through both dinners and drinks. The people we saw most were HR, as they ran the programme, but we also saw employees through presentations and talks, and then had a chance to network through drinks – which were all provided by HSBC.

Free food and drink so I can’t really complain! The venues were very nice (all held in either the actual HSBC building itself or other bars / restaurants around Canary Wharf). Having said that, food was quite limited and the number of employees attending the events was limited too, leading to crowding of several interns to one employee.

No.

Of course.