Account Manager Support Review

My internship was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I learnt and developed many skills, experienced the world of work, met some lovely people, completed an array of tasks, visited customers and overall had a fantastic 12 weeks. I could not have spent my university summer holiday in a better organisation and the internship has definitely helped me to discover a possible future career which would be both rewarding and great fun.

My colleagues at the Stoke-on-Trent branch were most welcoming and helped me to settle into the organisation as quickly as possible. They were always willing to help my if I was struggling, were extremely approachable and welcomed questions my many questions! I felt like they gave me a lot of responsibility considering I came into the internship completely new to banking, which certainly made me feel like a valued member of the team.

My branch manager gave me a lot of support and guidance throughout my internship. We had weekly catch up meetings and he gave me feedback as I was going along. [This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyPlacement Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions] in HR was a huge support too and it was nice to have a friendly face when I visited head office. They also put a buddy system in place which I utilised and this gave an extra level of guidance on a less pressured level.

For most of the internship, I had a lot of tasks to do and a few client visits, which kept me very busy so that was great! Occasionally the branch was extremely busy, so the team were preoccupied and struggled to find as much for me to do. This was mainly due to it being the summer holidays and the fact that different staff took their annual leave at different times, so sometimes there weren’t many people in so they had less time to find me work to do.

I had a reasonable amount of responsibility with certain tasks, for example answering the phones, creating account opening forms and attending client meetings. It would have been difficult to give me a lot of responsibility as my banking knowledge is fairly slim, so I think I was given a significant amount of responsibility considering my lack of experience.

The skills I developed during this internship will definitely be worthwhile in my degree and beyond. I think I specifically developed my organisation, time management and teamwork skills which will prove extremely useful in the future. The training I received on Handelsbanken IT systems and the exposure to banking terminology will be very useful for the future, especially if I manage to secure work with Handelsbanken.

The office had a very friendly atmosphere which created a lovely environment to work in. The stress levels were quite high as it has been the summer holidays so the staffing levels have varied significantly as people took their annual leave. This meant the atmosphere was constantly changing, which has been good to see as it had given me an accurate representation of changing office environments. In general, it has been a really enjoyable because of the lovely company.

The overall internship was extremely well organised. The HR team made a huge effort to make sure we were enjoying and getting the most out of our internships. They provided interns with an induction pack which we got at the induction day at head office which was within the first few weeks of most people’s internships. [This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyPlacement Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions] organised a plan for my internship which he ensured covered everything I wanted to achieve too, so that was very well organised (and we pretty much stuck to the plan!).

The company invested a lot in terms of personal training and development considering it was only a 12 week internship! [This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyPlacement Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions] treated me like any other ”new starter” so he got me to write down what I hoped to get out of the next 12 weeks and what I wanted to learn/develop/find out in the future. This meant he was able to organise my placement in a way that allowed me to develop skills personally and achieve a lot out of my time with Handelsbanken.

I would love to work for Handelsbanken in the future. My Handelsbanken internship was probably the most useful, rewarding and highly enjoyable experience I could have hoped for. It Is definitely the best way to spend my university summer holiday as it has helped me to discover a potential career path, allowed me to have an experience in which I have gained many useful skills for the future and given me confidence to apply for a banking role next year.

Within the short time I was part of the company, it proved difficult to have a good social scene with colleagues outside of working hours, as I was commuting over an hour to work so there wasn’t much time. I have managed to make friend with two of the interns, one who I met at the assessment centre and then again at head office and the other who I met at head office. We are going to meet up next year because we go to the same university.

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The branch organised a networking drinks evening with their clients whilst I was there which was a good way to feel part of the team and interact with other professionals in the local area. They were also in the process of organising a business breakfast and a few Christmas events, which I helped with, so I can see that if I had spent a longer time period with the branch, then there would have been more opportunities for activities outside of work. However, I may be coming back for a few of the activities over the next few months.