Spring Intern Review

I enjoyed the insight a great deal! What I enjoyed the most was the work shadowing part and that I was assigned a buddy who gave me work and introduced me to many other bankers in the TMT team in IBD. I also had the opportunity to get to know other bankers from other departments through various networking events and through introductions.

I felt very valued during my time at Citi. Among my work shadowing assignments I was given meaningful public comparable models to update and maintain. I also felt valued by the HR team who made sure we were all getting the most out of our experiences and they were very approachable when we needed help or were in doubt of anything regarding the programme.

I got a lot of guidance and support during the insight. My buddy made sure I was absorbing a lot of knowledge and was very approachable if I needed help and advice. The other bankers in IBD were also very supportive when I approached them to ask for help and/or to learn new skills through work shadowing.

I learned a lot about corporate finance during 1 week at Citi. It was great to learn how valuation toolkits work in practice while working at a bank. This has further reinforced my understanding of finance which helps me in my management degree where I take several finance courses in this semester.

The insight was very well structured. It had a good mix of work shadowing as well as networking, skills and presentation sessions. On the last day of the insight was the Assessment Centre which was very useful and showed us the type of skills that are expected out of spring insight interns for the summer internship.

The general atmosphere was great as it combined work with my TMT team together with fun skills sessions with other spring insight interns and HR. There was also a really fun team bonding and networking session at the bat and ball which was a lot of fun and helped us to get to know one another even better.

The firm invested a lot into us. I felt very valued that junior and senior bankers took their time to prepare and present various topics of the bank to us. Furthermore, there were very valuable skill sessions given to us such as the group case study exercise and the Assessment Centre. The team I was work shadowing also put a lot of effort to make sure I was learning the most about valuations and research during the week that I was here for. However, I think more prep for the AC could have been provided as the AC tasks were very different to the spring week, in particular the individual case study.

Given that I was given meaningful tasks by my work shadowing group, I had a great feel of what it would be like to work at Citi in a full time role. I was given the tasks of an analyst; namely to update and maintain public comparable valuation models using broker reports and Q4 reports of 14 companies. I also had the opportunity to get to know the team and thus felt like I was part of the group of TMT analysts and associates.

The insight helped me a lot in understanding the company culture given that there were many networking events where I had the opportunity to talk to a multitude of bankers across many divisions. In my work shadowing group I also had the opportunity to meet many bankers and my buddy further introduced me to bankers across many different teams for me to get a greater sense of the culture. The culture strikes me as being very global, open, willing to teach others new skills and being very strongly team oriented.

It was very valuable for the work shadowing, skill sessions and for most of the presentations. However I felt that some of the presentations, namely the corporate social responsibility and the employee networks did not help in my deciding my career path, but rather helped to show what Citi has to offer to employees, which is of course also valuable; just did not help much in choosing a career path.

I was reimbursed for all my necessary expenses. Citi paid for my hotel and my return Eurostar tickets too. At the beginning of the programme we were told to hold onto all our expenses receipts and we were given reimbursement forms with which to reimburse them for. We were furthermore given debit cards with generous allowance for buying food at the bank’s in house canteen.

We had a schedule were almost everyday we had networking sessions to meet with bankers across the firm. During the work shadowing sessions we also had the opportunity to meet other employees of the Bank. The presentation sessions delivered by senior bankers also often provided us with a networking sessions with those presenters immediately after the presentation sessions.

The social event opportunities allowed the spring interns to thoroughly get to know each other as well as the recruitment team. The networking opportunities allowed for us spring interns to make valuable connections with potential future colleagues in banking. There was even one great event that combined the networking and social opportunities by having all of us have a fun gathering sessions at the Bat and Ball and helped us get to know bankers and HR in a much more relaxed environment and helped us feel closer to the bank.

Yes, during the presentation sessions we learned about several activities that employees can get involved with outside of work. At Citi every employee gets the opportunity to spend 1 full day a year on a charitable activity such as working together with a school or to promote green energy. There are also choir and rowing events organized for Citi employees in order for them to get to have greater team bonding.

I most certainly would recommend this insight to a friend. The insight programme definitely provides a great first step impression into banking to learn about the bank and various career paths, as well as an opportunity to be given the chance to do an assessment centre for summer internship recruitment. The insight is also a great way for networking and to make connections with potential future colleagues. Finally, the insight also gives you a very realistic feel for how it would be like to work at the bank.