RBWM Summer intern Review

I really enjoyed my eight weeks long summer internship, there was an induction weekend out of London and the internship itself was split into two parts. The first four weeks were spent in a retail branch which was a customer facing role and the other four were spent at the HSBC head office in Canary Wharf.

In the retail branch, everyone was very friendly and welcoming, and you make friends very quickly with the staff who are always helpful. My branch manager was especially nice and would take me out to lunch for our one to one meetings. However work I could do was limited because I am not qualified to do any account openings or other routine things like that for customers. At the head office I felt more useful and as a result felt more valued just because things I was working on became used in presentations and meetings.

The working culture at HSBC is a lot less relaxed compared to other banks, and as a result the people are a lot more willing to spend time talking to you and helping you. For me though, it just so happened that my line manager at head office was away on holiday for most of the time I was there, so his absence meant I couldn't get a lot of guidance from him, but instead I had the help of those in more junior positions than him.

How busy you are really depends on how busy you want to be. The day was very flexible and varied a lot. Sometimes I would be pretty free and go out for a long lunch, other times I skipped lunch entirely. This depends on your deadlines and if you had a full schedule, for example if you had meetings in your diary you were expected to attend.

In the branch, I could not really do anything so I had very limited responsibility. One thing I did do was a mystery shop and then I presented my findings to the branch staff afterwards. At head office I was responsible for completing my tasks and managing my time in order to make sure I met deadlines, so responsibility here was a lot greater.

Definitely you learn how to work with people from all backgrounds, with people you get on with well and also people you get on less well with. People facing skills are useful for whatever profession, so this was very valuable. I also learned a lot of new skills on Microsoft excel, which was good because spreadsheets are such s widely used and important program.

The atmosphere was definitely relaxed. They know you are a summer intern and that you are there to learn so there isn't too much pressure. Especially as it was summer, people were coming back from or going on holiday, the weather was nice and in general that was reflected in people's moods. It was only Mondays and perhaps Tuesdays that were slightly more hectic.

Not bad but my line manager was away most of the time in my second placement in the head office. That was slightly disruptive as I had no one to report to, but at the same time it gave me an opportunity to meet and network with more people, people I otherwise may not have spoken to or worked with.

Every week there was a session called lunch and learn, and this was an opportunity for all the interns to come together and be given a presentation from someone from another division of the bank, or on a particular topic such as international regulation. This allowed us to learn more about specific areas in banking from people with specialised knowledge so this I found hugely beneficial.

Not too sure about future employment prospects. It seems quite hard to move departments and just depends on who you know. Networking is very important. Although an exiting thing with HSBC is that there seems to be opportunity to work in many different places, Hong Kong being the most obvious one.

Every Friday the interns would have drinks outside the HSBC building on the lawn at Canary Wharf. As wimbledon was on, we watched that on big screens which was very nice. There is also a graduate committee who organised events for the graduates but we were also invited. This included sports and charity events as well as networking over drinks.

As it was Canary Wharf, the cost of living and socialising would probably be one of the highest in London, if not the whole country. Although I would say it is a pretty standard London cost, so a cocktail is around ten pounds or so. But there is a big waitrose just outside our building so sometimes people would buy food or drinks there which of course is a lot cheaper than from a bar.

Canary Wharf is just a concentration of tall buildings housing major banks and financial institutions, and not a lot else. As such, there was not a night life to speak of, most people finish work quite late and just want to get home. However on Friday nights the bars and restaurants are quite full with people.

Yes there are a lot of activities you can be involved with, ranging from charity fundraisers or just drinks and networking after work. The graduate team do a lot of social events such as a sports day, and we had a day painting and gardening at a local primary school to help and get involved with the community.