Summer Analyst - Global Asset Management Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my internship at HSBC. Working on a variety of projects gave me the chance to experience different areas of the business and see how different stakeholders think and approach problems. HSBC also made an effort to ensure the interns interacted with a range of senior employees and this was a great opportunity to understand their career progression and receive career advice.

I felt very valued by colleagues. Although just an intern, with very limited knowledge of the industry, I was given what felt like meaningful tasks to work on. This work would then offered be used by my line manager to discuss and drive projects with senior stakeholders across the business.

I was given a lot of support and guidance from my line-manager, buddy, and a range of other people from team, other graduates, and HR also. The atmosphere at HSBC is one that genuinely seems to care about your personal development, and a lot of effort is put into ensuring you are enjoying your working experience. Although it was sometimes difficult to navigate such a large organisation, help was always there from the people mentioned above.

My workload was inconsistent. The nature of the work on my desk meant that pieces of work with fairly tight deadlines would often by presented to me with short notice. At the same time, there would be some parts of week where I would more time to myself, which I would use to meet other employees, work on my project, and do wider industry reading.

I was given a good level of responsibility on my internship. When giving me tasks to complete, my line manager would give me an outline how they would like to final piece to be laid out etc, but would only give general pointers concerning the content. This was good, and allowed me to use my own intellectual capacity to determine the best way to produce pieces of work.

I developed people and project management skills which will be highly valuable for the rest of my degree and certainly my career. I received limited technical training for the internship, but know that were I accepted onto the graduate scheme, would receive much more technical training to qualify me to work in the industry.

The general atmosphere in the office was quite relaxed, for a large financial services company. Whilst all employees were obviously professional at all times, the atmosphere did not feel overly formal or tense, and allowed people to comfortably talk and laugh with each other.

The internship was very well organised. HR were very clear in relaying information to line managers regarding scheduling catch-ups. The first week of the internship - an offsite training week was also very well organised, with good catering. Weekly lunch and learns were also organised, and initial, mid and end of programme events were all very enjoyable.

The firm organised weekly lunch and learns where we spoke with senior stakeholders about their career progression and current roles. These sessions were hugely useful for my personal development in terms of receiving very relevant career advice. We did not receive much technical training, but as mentioned, this is certainly included on the graduate programme.

For this specific internship, the uptake onto the graduate scheme is quite high, with the firm clearly stating that they use the internship as the main hiring stream for their graduate roles. HR were also very clear about the kind of traits we ought to display in order to best progress and impress.

As a smaller intern group within the wider pool we socialised as a group on a few occasions, nearer the end of the programme. We also had an informal evening organised with some of the graduates, and HR also organised 3 events (start, mid and end of programme) for all of the interns.

Living costs in south east London were around the London average. As the internship was in Canary Wharf, socialising in the area was slightly more expensive than other areas of London. This could perhaps explain why we did not socialise as an intern group on too many occasions during the programme.

The nightlife in Canary Wharf consists of a lot of bars, mostly frequented by workers from the surrounding offices. Having a good nightlife close to the office was not a priority for me, and still being in London, better areas for nightlife were also very easily accessed by public transport.

HR organised a volunteering event halfway through the programme, which was essentially mandatory and proved to be an enjoyable afternoon. Later on during the same day there was also a go-karting activity organised for us. Apart from that were not many other opportunities I was aware of during the programme.