Investment Consultancy Intern Review

Learned quite a few soft-skills. Aon have clearly invested in the grad scheme. It was also a flexible working environment - come and go as you please, and colleagues were happy to have lunch with you (even as a lowly intern!). However, I did not enjoy the travel and would recommend choosing an internship near where you are staying!

A few treated me with disdain and were unwilling even to talk with me. These were mainly 27-28 year old analysts who probably didn't think I would help their career. Senior people were surprisingly open and willing to give work to you, or at least MORE willing to talk to you on a human level. Fellow interns were surprisingly interesting - clearly the selection process had wheedled out people just looking for a career.

I had a continuously rolling list of questions. My buddy was great at answering them! My manager could have given me more feedback - I had to ask a lot - and I did not feel I had a relationship with him whatsoever. However, I think it obvious how you are performing over 9 weeks and over the one session we did have there was not much to report.

Some days I had next to nothing to do but this lead me to do a "better job" on the one task I might have had. It was useful to have a corporate social responsibility project on these days so as to have "something to do". However, on other days I felt like I was in a "proper job", with consultants sending me fairly "urgent" things to do and even leaving me a list of things whilst they were on holiday,

A fair bit. Even though I was given "easy" tasks, I still felt they needed to be done for the client. These were mainly numerically based though - you were either right or wrong - and I would have liked more tasks with scope for using your brain. When these did come they were fairly interesting and Aon should trust interns with more to make them commit to the company!

100% skills learned here - calls, emails, etc - I will be able to use going forward. I came from a non-economics background and it will be really helpful to have that sort of background going into the working world, even if this is not the right job for me. However, I think the time management/working environment aspect of the job will be helpful going forward.

Always genial with banter, but I always felt the conversation was rather "corporate" - stopping real relationships forming. There was little cross office contact which would have been nice. Everyone was very supportive - cards were sent out for birthdays etc, but I get the sense that if i had to rely on anyone for a personal crisis I would have to look elsewhere.

Fairly... I think more progress meetings/objective driven goals would have been helpful, however there were lunch and learns/ updates to let you know where you should be in the development timeline. It had to interview 6 times, so a timeline would have been nice. Similarly I am unsure how/when I will be offered a placement with the company.

Lots of money was spent on me and although quality varied I was very happy with the opportunities. Lots of courses were available on Aon university - which I recommend you take advantage of. I probably spent about 1/4 of my time in a meeting or training of some sort, which was the best bit of the internship.

No idea at the moment.

Not in my office - where there were only 4 interns. I heard it was better in London though. I found most interns had another side to them outside of the workplace, but internally ambition was minimal and most people were just doing a get in and get out job.

Train fairs to St Albans are ridiculous, and a LARGE proportion of my wages went on them. I normally got a morrisons meal deal, which was exceptionally good value, which "made up for it". There were plenty of pubs/ restaurants if you wanted to eat out, but St Albans as a location was fairly bland and I would not have wanted to spend time there...

I lived at home. St Albans is fairly lifeless as a town though and unless you have kids/ a family I would not want to live here.

Quite a few. You could go drinking with colleagues, play football every Tuesday. I was invited to a cricket match or I could volunteer at a local charity. I would say that the "corporate" way everyone went about things stopped me from participating fully in things as I did not feel i had any "friends" in the work place. But what can I expect after 9 weeks...