Actuarial Pensions Review

The work itself was interesting, it was the basics of actuarial work which would be ran through and explained. Sometimes you might be left with some of the more boring tasks but they try to make them as interesting as possible for you. The main problem was not getting enough work.

Colleagues at Aon are in general very welcoming, they make you feel included and you can always ask them any questions. The only times you might not feel valued is when you are low on work and ask them for work, some people have a tendency to ignore your messages.

You are assigned a manager and a buddy, the buddy would be someone in your team who you could ask questions to whereas the manager was there to oversee your progress and make sure everything was going okay for you. I had two different managers throughout my internship and both were extremely friendly and supportive.

This is heavily dependent on which office you were in. Many other interns did have work (especially if you are in London) however since I was in one of the more regional offices I hardly had any work, many days I was left to do purely "internal training" which means me using some of the resources Aon provide to learn or reading things on the internet.

When you were given work, it would normally be reasonably important client work, meaning a calculation or the preparation of a presentation and therefore it would have been quite a high level of responsibility. The tasks weren't just filing cabinets or anything like that! All work would be checked over but this should be expected.

The first 3 days of the internship involved training which included training on soft skills and the actual role itself. There were numerous training sessions each week, including a "lunch and learn" which was held every Tuesday. Lunch and learn was ran by more senior members of staff in London as a seminar (although other offices could watch and listen in anyway). There were also other training sessions periodically on different topics.

The office was professional, most of the time it was quiet or there were people on call. It looked modern and was well lit, including good kitchen and toilet facilities. Parking was a bit of an issue as there wasn't enough parking for the whole office but there are places nearby.

Overall the internship was well organized, good training, managers arranged meetings and they attempted to keep you busy. There could have been more planning for how much work there will be for interns but other than that most of the events for interns were well arranged and planned out to the tee.

The firm spent a lot of time and money training you, including the 3 days at the beginning, and all the training sessions from there. This included them hiring people to do the training and also paying for travel/hotels to go to the training sessions. They couldn't have done much more.

The majority of interns seem to get job offers from the office they work in (assuming that they impressed their team enough). This will be a conditional offer based on getting a 2:1 from university. They also run through the job prospects and the examinations you have to go through if you do get a job with them.

Dependent on the office (i.e. how many grads or interns there are) the social life is good. It is best in London where there are the most people but Aon regularly had an open bar in the evenings for social events/ arranged pub lunches which had paid food and drink.

Depends on the office, the London office and the surrounding office would obviously have a very high cost of living and socializing but the majority of jobs in this industry will be in this area anyway so no one really has a choice in the matter. It was as expected.

The company held numerous events that were out of work, my office has a 5 a side football every Tuesday and other offices also hold things like basketball. There were also regular socials for example quiz nights/bowls. There is also the opportunity to work for charities or for internal support groups.