Summer Intern Review

I had a wonderful time getting to know different people across the bank, as well as interacting with all the interns along the summer. I have had the chance to discover and embrace a new product in the Investment Banking division, thanks to great guidance from my junior and senior colleagues, as well as unique trust placed into my work.

From an early stage and onwards, I was given a considerable amount of responsibilities, to test my abilities to handle pressure and perform under tight deadlines. Since I managed to gain my colleagues' trust, I have gradually given more room to expand and test my knowledge of the product, while increasingly interacting with senior members of my team.

Given the product was unknown or rather new for most of the interns in the team, we were given a quick overall introduction to technical as well as process-related aspects of the team. I wish we could have had more hands-on training on modelling tasks performed by analysts, at an early stage of the internship rather than at an advanced stage. Other than that, I strongly appreciated the availability of all team members, no matter what level, at all time throughout the internship.

Given the medium-term and market-facing nature of the product, there is a rather consequent amount of work that is done throughout the day, hence keeping the juniors (associates, analysts and interns) busy throughout the day. I was hence relatively busy for most of the time, with still some reasonable free time to allocate to my project.

In comparison to my previous experiences and other colleagues interning at Nomura or other institutions, I believe I was given a high level of responsibility, with a lot of trust put into my work by my team members, other teams' members. I consequently had the chance to enjoy a great amount of interaction and exposure to seniors.

Unfortunately, given I had already completed a masters degree rather specialised in the field of my work and training, the additional skills I developed won't specifically assist me in my degree studies or any academically-related. However, since I enjoyed the product and plan to start working around it, I surely have developed a unique understanding of transactional and market-facing activities of the bank, as well as social, organizational skills for life.

The team being rather big compared to others (around 20-25 employees) and with a clear horizontal structure, the overall atmosphere was balanced between a mix of informal and professional interactions. Indeed, it was relatively easy to get along with all juniors as well as convert with seniors during business hours and social team events.

The Graduate Recruitment Team has made a great job managing the early introduction of interns to the various divisions of the bank, as well as ensuring fluid communications of events. I particularly enjoyed the effort from the team to arrange a meet-up of summer interns with the respective regional coverage office team members before the Internship start.

The first week of training as well as Bloomberg and Factset Insight Days were useful and well organized. I believe they were a good way to bring interns together at an early stage and ensure a homogeneous skills level. I was grateful I was provided with this training and thank Nomura for it.

Provided I am offered a position in the team I interned with, I would be extremely motivated to join the organisation and contribute to its future evolution. I have witnessed the high level of technicality and job satisfaction of other junior and senior team members, which in a sense positively influenced my appeal to the team.

Thanks to the various events organised by the Graduate Recruitment Team and the unique set up of casual events on the building's terrace on the 6th floor, I believe the social scene was quite complete, which allowed myself and my colleagues to enjoy easy getaway hours on a weekly basis.

The cost of living and socialising was rather high, considering the institution is located in the City area.

For the same reasons as mentioned above, Nightlife was usually more active in areas other than the one I worked in. Nonetheless, there was always an opportunity to organise team events a few meters away from the office, in locations with a sufficient capacity and comfortable-enough outset for everyone to enjoy their time out.

Given the limited time availability implied by the work, I could not explore the different opportunities proposed outside office.