Account Manager Support Intern Review

Really enjoyable internship. I had a really good time, the people were really nice and welcoming and have helped me along the way to learn how Handelsbanken works. The HR team did a really good job with the tasks assigned and I really enjoy working at Handelsbanken as its completely different from what everyone thinks banking is like. The family feeling of working in a branch, the responsibility for everything and really welcoming and approachable people make this a really amazing place to work at and I wish I could continue to do so in the future.

I think that to a major extend most of the colleagues that I worked with at the branch value my input and try and get me involved into the work that they are doing and do not mind that I approach them either seeking work, knowing what they are doing or asking for advise. I've met some difficulty but it was not anything of negative impact, mostly that the staff member would be very focused on their task and their personality is very introverted and hard to approach. The majority of time I felt very valued and welcome as part of the branch, and most staff members made me feel as if I'm working there permanently.

I was given a lot of support, My branch manager, branch mentor and student mentor all provided me with important advice, and any staff member that gave me something to do or offered me to help them with something would take their time to show me the tasks to do and teach me everything from the ground up so I never felt like anything was undoable for me except when I didn't have such permissions. The HR team were really helpful sending useful information, I just wish some of them would be more clearer but majority of the time you can always ask if clarity is needed. My branch mentor would be always there if I needed to ask him questions and my branch manager reviewed every week with me by meeting me every time he was available.

I think at first I was quite busy because there was a lot of things just as development courses to do but then after that once I started to ease into the role, there wasn't that much work available. That was mainly because staff weren't really used to sharing their workload, more than anything I think. The majority of time after that however at least two or three staff members would always have something for me to do, and if not then I was able to focus on pieces of work that were given to me at the start of the Internship such as Branch Project or Glossary of Terms which helped mitigate the times where there was not much work for me to do.

I think that the Internship experience at Handelsbanken gives you a lot of responsibility, you get access to quite a lot of programs with a lot of information that you can make changes to and you get to see confidential information which means that it highlights the responsibility of your role. However I didn't get as much time with customers as I thought and I still had no permissions to certain applications which made it very stream lined on what kind of work I could help with as it would sometimes require me to take over someone else's computer to do some of the work I didn't have any permission to look at.

I have already finished my degree, but I think the skills I developed were really helpful. Attention to detail and managing my workload and tasks were important skills that I learned. Speaking to customers was also an important skill that will carry over to other places I might work at in the future that I can further develop. This was my first real work experience therefore it was not something I've ever done before and learning so much as the internship goes on I feel that I have learned a lot of skills as well as improved so of my current ones such as being efficient or time keeping or problem solving which was being tested during this internship. I think there are some really useful skills you can learn at this internship and I would recommend to try it.

The atmosphere was really fantastic, everybody was really helpful and even though there are many different personalities in the office, everybody feels like a close family. The people who I worked with were really nice to me and taught me things as I went and when I made a mistake or missed something out they made sure they pointed it out but also praised me when I fixed things or discovered mistakes made by them or efficiently worked through the tasks that I was given. Everybody was very chatty and enjoyable and everybody is really good at discussing things while they work so you never feel like you stop them. Some days a lot of people were on holiday so those days weren't as good as you could feel the lack of people being present.

I think the organisation was really good. We knew from the start what the 8 weeks were going to contain, and I felt everyone made it work really well. I think the only place where it wasn't doing as well was maybe some things weren't as clear like what is expected out of a task or the branch wasn't really as well prepared as the HR team was but I think that's just down to the decentralised system. I think overall the experience was close to seamless.

I think they invested a lot because the staff members dedicated time to show me things and explain how to do things and also they allowed me to see what they do. They gave me useful advice whenever applicable. The Company itself gave me Development courses (about 25 of them) which were really helpful to understand a lot of the concepts that I might have been aware of or wasn't aware of within the business and also made it a very easy way to learn and get information. The HR team also gave us a glossary of terms and supported us with useful information whenever possible and I think there was a lot of useful investment. The HR team even gave us a CV workshop on one of the days at the Regional Office and also gave us tips for the future.

I really want to work for them in the future as I love the Handelsbanken culture and the way the business works and I think I would be very proud to work for a business like that, especially after the experience I've had so far during my internship. I hope that I what I contributed would be found useful and I will pursue to try and get hired in the future. I think there are many opportunities within Handelsbanken and hopefully there will be one for me.

I think so, we only met up three two times over the course of the internship but there was a group project where I worked with 3 others on a presentation and the team members were very nice and enjoyable to work with. Some people really thought it was a competition however and during conference calls and HR days they tried really hard to one up everybody on everything or use other peoples ideas to try and look better instead of original approaches but I think overall nobody was mean or inappropriate and I think the social scene was good as we could communicate while working using an messenger application which made it easy to know how others are doing.

I had to travel from quite a distance away so I never really got to socialise and I didn't live in the area I worked in but I feel that the networking that the branch has is very good and socialising within the area should be good as the city of Guildford is really nice though it might be expensive to live in it and if I had a permanent place here I would most likely move close but somewhere affordable.

I didn't end up staying here long so I wouldn't know what the nightlife is like but through speaking with my colleagues it is not a bad place to be at though not the most student, the University of Surrey is nearby so maybe if you're from there or know someone from there you might know better on the nightlife in Guildford. I cant really say for myself however.

I don't think so specifically during this internship as there are networking events but they are usually ran by others and function off an invite basis. However this might have just been for me as if you work for Handelsbanken you can work in any branch and I heard other interns from other branches had that kind of experience so therefore I wouldn't count this one out.