Markets Intern Review

I enjoyed the internship very much. The two teams I worked with in my two rotations gave me an idea of what life in an investment bank is all about. The rotation scheme, which not all banks have, is perfect to learn as much as possible. The one thing I found hard initially was the early mornings!

In my division, markets, everyone is busy all the time. In the summer period this gets worse as people are on holiday. So the people still working are even more busy as they are covering other people’s jobs too. I felt valued to an extent but it is fine line between helping and being annoying. Ideally more work would have been good but the free time I had was put towards shadowing more and ultimately learning more.

The people at Citi are really approachable and friendly. In this sense, I was able to approach Managing Directors and Directors and spend time with them. There is a lot of support given with Speaker Series sessions and feedback sessions though out the internship. If I had any questions I would approach my managers and usually they would help out. If not, they would tell me to come back in a while when they were free.

On a daily basis it varied between my two rotations. On my first rotation I was given numerous long term projects so I was busy every day. In my second rotation it was much more flow based. This meant I had some work here and there but nothing long term. I had a morning email and afternoon email to send everyday which was really good to understand what was going on in the market and on the desk.

Responsibility wise there was a lot. The teams were under no hesitancy to give me important work just because I was an intern. A lot of my work was sent out to clients. In my first rotation I covered a market in which the desk had no expertise. This allowed me to simply explore the market and form my own view of the market. Once I ran this by my manager he sent this out to a few clients who had been looking for this information.

In my opinion an undergraduate education in most subjects are not relevant to the corporate world of finance and vice versa. Masters in finance would however be very applicable. The skills I learnt on the internship are essential for working life but not so much to education. Skills such as Excel and Bloomberg functionality as well as technical finance knowledge.

The trading floor was buzzing in the mornings and during market hours and then calmed down after the market closed. Different asset classes have different atmospheres as do different desks. For example FX will be really intense and busy usually as it is a flow asset class in general. Commodities might be less intense as there is less flow usually day-to-day. My desks were friendly and interesting. People were more than happy to help me learn.

The internship was extremely well organised from a HR point of view. We knew (mostly) what events were happening when and where they were. We also had a lot of extracurricular activities organised for us to help our learning and development; activities such as a weekly trading game and a community crystal Maze day. From a team point of view they knew we were arriving but didn’t have work ready for us. It took a couple of days to get up and running, especially as a lot of people were on holiday.

There is a lot of investment in employees at Citi. There is a strong culture of developing employees and this filters down to interns too. As an intern we had access to all the systems and facilities. A huge surprise was having access to a Bloomberg Terminal which improved our functionality for later in our career. A lot of learning activities were organised to help us grow. We also had a week’s worth of training in asset classes.

Future prospects at Citi are very enticing. The graduate scheme is a real advantage at Citi due to the rotation schemes. Some divisions such as Treasury and Trade Solutions actually do international placements for one rotation too. The rotations give you an opportunity to understand what you really like rather than going into the unknown.

There was a very good social scene at Citi; especially among the interns. There were a couple of official social events organised by HR to network with members of the organisation, however a lot of it was informal. Citi is in Canary Wharf so there are a lot of locations to grab a drink after work. The teams generally try to keep a social aspect to work too.

The cost of living in London, especially Central London, is high. It will be approximately £200 per week over summer for a room. Then you have to take into account food and travel. Overall the living and socialising costs are very high. However the pay in banking will be fine to compensate. Also a piece of advice would be to live with family if you are lucky enough to have any in London.

Nightlife in Canary Wharf is good. Nightlife in London is amazing. So either way you can enjoy yourself in London. Canary Wharf has a lot of pubs and bars however not too many clubs. For clubs we used to go to the Shoreditch area which is pretty near to Citi. However Citi is a perfect location to meet other interns from JP Morgan, HSBC, Credit Suisse, Barclays etc.

There were a lot of opportunities at work and outside work. At Citi there is a gym in the building (you have to pay) and other activities available. We had an art viewing event organised for the interns to see Citi's art collection. However being in London the real lure is outside of work. There is a huge amount of things to do. Whether that is going to bars/clubs or simply sports etc.