Summer Intern Review

I did not enjoy my time at AON for a variety of reasons. For an intern, it was quite an excessive experience. That is to say, we were required to be there from 8.30 am to 6pm despite the fact that we weren’t delegated that much work! The colleagues were disrespectful towards us and looked down upon us too.

I did not feel valued by my colleagues at all. We were never entrusted with much responsibility, were often looked down upon and ignored. My manager barely had much contact with us so there was not much in place of a support system. On various occasions we were told to “stay in our place” or “stay in line” which I found very condescending.

I remember meeting my manager on the first day but had very little contact, support or guidance from him henceforth. We were supposed to organise weekly catch-ups for feedback or guidance but these never happened. Any times I ran into a sticky situation I did not feel I could rely on my manager to help me out. I do not know why I was assigned a manager as mine played a very small role in the internship.

I was always kept on my toes by colleagues but not actually given much meaningful work. Most of my work was admin related and I did feel quite annoyed by this as it was not actuarial work but meaningless tasks. Throughout the nine weeks, I was given very little technical work.

I was given very little real responsibility. As previously stated, most of my tasks were admin related right through to the end of the internship. All of my work was assigned from analyst and or actuarial apprentices so that’s probably why. Senior colleagues did not delegate me any work at all.

I did not feel that I was able to develop any real skills or training during my internship. This is because I spent most of my time doing admin tasks that had no relation the actuarial technical work. My degree is actuarial science and as I was unable to do any actuarial work, I do not feel that the internship helped me develop any skills as such.

There was a very competitive atmosphere amongst colleagues and interns alike in my office. I felt that the interns were racing to outdo each other with each piece of task and also that the senior colleagues were keen to uphold this competitive atmosphere. There was not much work socialising going on either so working here was not fun.

I feel that AON did not invest in my personal training or development at all. We did not have any training sessions set up nor where we are of any development opportunities. This may have been because we were interns but I felt, from my experience in the office, that AON is not very big on colleague development.

I would not like to work for AON in the future. From my experience during this internship, I feel that corporate bullying is something they advocate. I often felt alone to get on with tasks in an extremely competitive environment and was often given very little/inadequate instructions. I would rather work in a friendlier environment where my growth and development is at the forefront of things.

There were quite a few opportunities to get involved with socialising outside of work as my office was based in London. However, I felt quite intimidated when we, as interns, were attending such activities as we were told on numerous occasions to ‘stay in line’ by senior colleagues, even outside of work.