Internship Review at Barclays - The Wealth and Investment Management Division

The Role

Role Description

Supporting Banker manage his client relationships. Mainly admin.

1. To what extent did you enjoy your work placement or internship?

★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆

Rated 4/10

The work was not stimulating, very administrative, at Banker level it seems great but not a stimulating place to start. Training was high level, not enough tangible new skills picked up. Experience was very much down to your team so if you had a bad manager, then had a terrible time.

2. To what extent did you feel valued by your colleagues?

★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆

Rated 5/10

Not at all. Little to no interaction in my team, most communication by email even if you were in the same rule. Unclear instructions and feedback (e.g. my manager asked to do more work for other bankers, and I had already approached other bankers but they had been told by him not to give me any work).

3. To what extent were you given support and guidance by management/your supervisor(s)?

★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Rated 1/10

In 10 weeks I had 4 meetings, despite insisting on a daily basis, emailing status reports, putting time in the calendar. All meetings would be cancelled. Feedback was often requested but not given. We were supposed to write our own objectives for what we wanted out of the internship, but mine were written for me by my manager as a list of things he hadn't got round to, like tidying his client portfolios and compliance. He was also rude. Although HR offered help they were ineffective in meetings, agreeing completely with line managers even contradicting original statements they had made to the intern class. I also had personal difficulties, and was told there was support for these but it was never given to me. Instead it was embarrassing and I didn't feel it had been kept confidential.

4. How busy were you on a daily basis?

★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆

Rated 4/10

I had plenty of work to do, but largely it was extremely boring and something that I would expect to be doing were I a PA or in compliance. A lot of the work was also to do with the terrible systems not being aligned, so manually copying information from one system to another.

5. How much responsibility were you given during your placement?

★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Rated 1/10

Although I insisted on ownership of one project, I was given the work of making my manager compliant, checking through everything he had failed to do with his clients.

6. To what extent did/will the skills you developed, and training you received, assist you in your degree studies and beyond?

★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Rated 2/10

Most of the skills I used here I already had. New skills were mainly individual to the firm and non transferable so a complete waste of time as I would never want to work there.

The Organisation

7. What was the general atmosphere in your office?

★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Rated 1/10

The complete opposite of a comfortable, enjoyable and supportive team environment. Little to no interaction, everyone kept to themselves and there was some back stabbing in terms of stealing clients.

8. How well organised was the overall work placement or internship set up?

★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆

Rated 4/10

While the HR side was very well organised (training, talks), there was almost no communication between HR and line managers. Also as my offices were not in the main site (I was in the high net worth group), I had to spend a lot of time travelling between Mayfair and Canary Wharf, and although these meetings were compulsory, I would get stick from my manager.

9. In terms of personal training and development, to what extent did the company or firm invest in you?

★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Rated 3/10

It aimed to invest a good amount, in line with other similar internships, many of these I already had and were very high level. I didn't learn many tangible things.

10. What were the perks on your work placement?

★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Rated 1/10

• There were no perks with this internship

11. How appealing are future employment prospects within the organisation?

★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Rated 1/10

Maybe in the future coming in as an experienced hire and in another area of the bank not HNW.

Other Information

12. Was there a good social scene amongst any fellow placement students/colleagues?

★★★★★★★☆☆☆

Rated 7/10

I organised many of the events, only about a third would make it to much.

13. What was the cost of living and socialising in the area you worked in?

★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Rated 3/10

Very expensive

14. What was the Nightlife like in the area you worked?

★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Rated 3/10

hardly anything

15. Were there many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work?

★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Rated 3/10

A couple of networking sessions.

In addition to these questions, is there any extra information you would like to leave about your experiences on your work placement that other students may be interested in?

No alignment between HR and the team you were placed on. Support promised but not delivered. Not stimulation at all.

Review 16/16 for Barclays - The Wealth and Investment Management Division

Previous