Retirement Intern Review

It was great to get an insight into what being an actuary actually involves. Mercer also arranged social events for us such as welcome drinks, a barbeque, a rounders game, and lots of other drinks!

Everyone was really friendly and I wasn't scared to ask questions.

All interns were given a buddy for the 8 week internship who we could go to for work or advice on work. We also met with our managers at the start of the internship to set goals, half way through to review them and set new goals/extend the ones we had and at the end for a final review.

This would be my only criticism of the internship; it would have been good to be more busy. However, we had a charity project and an intern project that we could work on when work loads were low so there was always stuff to do.

I feel I was given the right amount of responsibility.

If I decide on an actuarial career, the skills and training I have learnt will massively help me. If not, I have still enhanced skills such as teamworking, developing and maintaining professional relationships and time management which will help me in the future.

It was a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.

We had our first and last days organised for us with activities such as bonding exercises, learning about the company, training for our relevant roles and even a quiz! We also had free breakfast and lunch on these days and lots of chocolates! HR were really good at organising things for us and always checking how we were.

We were invited along to various training sessions on things such as Analysis of Surplus, Mercer Core Processes and Risk and Compliance and also were given talks on the different areas of Mercer's business such as Mercer Sentinel, Responsible Investments, Financial Strategy Group etc.

I have extended my internship until the end of December (as then I will be returning to university to do my final exams as I took a year out) and hope to secure a job with them next September. Mercer is a really friendly company with a relaxed atmosphere as well as being a leader in Retirement - the area I am interested in.

We all got on really well and went out for drinks a few times throughout the internship. I expect to stay in contact with the other Retirement interns and hopefully see them next September! We had lunch together every day in the canteen which was cheap and offered a large variety of food (I'm really fussy and still liked it!).

I worked in London so obviously going out is expensive but we did it anyway! I was fortunate enough to stay at my boyfriend's house who lives in London throughout the internship however and so I still managed to save up some money throughout the internship. Also, your colleagues know you're on an intern salary and so not as much as them and are hence very generous.

Good variety of pubs and clubs and people at work went out for drinks a lot. The company paid for a bar tab on some nights such as the start of the internship drinks, the end of the internship drinks, and when someone qualified so this is a definite perk! Also we have free champagne whenever someone qualifies at 4pm (once throughout my 8 week internship).

There were opportunities to get involved in the Cricket and Football teams, to organise charity events such as a raffle and bake sale, to go for drinks when people qualified/people left/start of internship etc and other fun events such as rounders and a barbeque were organised.