Markets Spring Insight Review

It was an incredible insight where we managed to get a lot of information about the bank and its culture, I felt like the exercises that were set up for the students to learn about trading and investment banking division (as those were my personal choices) were very helpful and it definitely gave an insight into the investment banking world.

I felt very valued at the firm, at networking events and during the whole week, if any of the students had any sort of questions, it would be answered and everyone truly listened to you and was interested in you, they were not there just to be there, so overall I personally felt very valued.

In terms of guidance, we were all told exactly what we needed to do and where we needed to be, in terms of support, personally I did not feel like I needed any, however I am aware that if anybody had any sort of questions, they could always ask and it would be answered right away.

I feel like my skills developed mainly through the interactive exercises that the bank set up, such as the trading game, as I want to be a trader, I feel like I learnt quite a lot about what they do and I had many questions which were answered, so I feel like other than communication skills, the main thing I developed was knowledge.

In terms of how structured the insight was, I would say it was structured amazingly, right from the intro all the way to the final interview day, everyone knew exactly what they needed to do and there was plenty of staff there you could always speak to or e-mail if you had any queries about anything.

The atmosphere at the insight was very good, it was clear that everyone was motivated and wanted to learn, and the staff seemed to be very happy to be there to help and introduce the potential future employees of the bank. Overall, I felt very welcomed and I loved the atmosphere.

The company invested in us by having other employees take their time to come in and explain what they did as well as bringing in external training firms to organise exercises for us to learn, but I think the most important thing is the time they took for us to learn.

I asked every question I could think of about the role that I would be doing at the firm and every question was answered successfully, we also got given a big overview throughout the weeks about the divisions available and although I had done my research prior to this week, I found out a lot I did not know about.

I would say that I understand the company culture now and I did right from the start of the presentation, as that's one of the main things that was introduced to us. BAML's culture is mainly based on 4 core values known as DART: Deliver Act Responsibly Realise the power of our people Trust And all this tied in with the way people behaved, and the culture is great.

The content was very valuable, as I knew I wanted to get into trading, it helped me get a better insight into what trading is actually like, things you must do in order to get there, and what kind of culture to expect at such a highly reputable investment bank.

I have reimbursed my expenses for my transport but I was not paid, although the hotel was paid and we had plenty of food most days including breakfast and lunch included, and of course, we also had a very fancy networking event with seniors which was at a nice restaurant. Expenses can be reimbursed until the 24th of April for transport.

There were plenty of networking opportunities with other employees, as well as a networking dinner with seniors of the firm, this gave us an insight into their personal life's and how they ended up working at BAML. It also gave us the opportunity to get close to some of these employees and that gave us the ability to contact them if we had any questions

The networking events were successful in my opinion, I liked everybody who I met and I really got to know their roles in depth, which I think is something you don't always get to do, even if you are shadowing, it was not as formal and we got to know the details not everybody would say.

I found activities that employees can get involved in outside of work and this is one of the things that I found out about mainly at the networking event, such as charity works you can do or even travel back to your country to do some kind of project, which is good to know, especially because BAML is so big on ESG.

I would recommend this to a friend because there is so much to learn and it is a fun and insightful experience which helps you realise what you want to do, I had friends who did the insight and changed career paths because they figured out what they really wanted to do.