Intern Review

I spent ten weeks on a summer internship with Coutts and have nothing but positive feedback to express. I really enjoyed my time there and the investment that Coutts makes in its interns, and grads for that matter, is exceptional, both in terms of time and training as well as on a financial basis. It is, in my opinion, a market leading internship and I couldn’t recommend it more highly to any aspiring private banker or wealth manager.

From the very start of the placement, everyone in the team of around twenty I worked in treated me as both an equal and a full-time member of staff. They were all incredibly friendly and approachable, no matter what level of seniority and this was not only true for the team but for the whole Bank too.

Throughout the internship, all of my colleagues were happy to give me their time in order to answer any questions I might have had but at the same time they recognised that I didn’t want to be spoon-fed and allowed me to tackle my workload in an independent fashion in order to fully demonstrate my capabilities.

It was up to me to find, manage and complete my own workload to different deadlines. I had full support and direction when needed but had the chance to take on the full gamut of tasks availble in the private banking and wealth management space. Some of these were process driven with short deadlines, some were more strategic tasks with 4-5 week time frames and many were in between the two. This allowed me to maintain a steady flow of work, with the opportunity to demonstrate my capabilities, without burning myself out and working until midnight each night.

On my internship I was given as much responsability as I could prove I could handle. This meant that having demonstrated that I was personable and could learn quickly in the first week, I went on to take on tasks involving a higher degree of responsability. There was no sense of not being allowed to do lots of things because I was an intern. In the end I attended 6 client meetings, assisted with creating a pitch for investment business, take part in several networking events and perform many tasks which involved direct client contact.

The skills that I developed, alongside the training that I received, will be of great benefit to me going forward. They are applicable in a wide spectrum of areas for example: - Organisation through having had to prioritise a heavy workload effectively - Interpersonal skills through having experience building rapport with colleagues and clients quickly and successfully, - Understanding and collating complex information through having to draw on tax returns, employment contracts, legislation, wills and investment documentation (to name but a few) in order to build up a full picture of a client's financial circumstances.

The atmosphere in my office was excellent. On the one hand it was always friendly and chatty but on the other hand there was peace and quiet if you needed to get your head down and get something done.

The organisation of the internship was truly seamless. The HR department could not have been better at keeping us well informed, answering our questions, organising events (work related and social / networking) and making sure on a regular basis that we were getting the most out of our internship.

There was a lot of investment in us as interns, both financially and in terms of time. There were insight sessions which gave us a chance to see different areas of the business, networking events which gave us a chance to get to know the existing graduate community and several Managing Directors and finally lots of training to give us the skills needed to potentially become a Private Banker's Assistant or Wealth Manager's Assistant at Coutts.

Future employment prospects within Coutts are very positive. They ensure that you are given the opportunities over the internship to demonstrate whether you are a good fit for the business. The internship programme has good links with the graduate programme and I would be very pleased were I to receive an offer to come back to Coutts for this.

There were six interns at Coutts this year and we all got on extremely well. We were all aligned to different client groups but would often go for lunch or drinks and dinner together.

Central London is expensive but then again, there are plenty of corporate offers to take advantage of. Our salary also included a London living allowance component which took this into account.

With the office being situated on The Strand, it is extremely well placed to take advantage of everything the West End has to offer.

Given that we only had ten weeks it wasn't that easy to fully get involved in the different sports and social clubs that are on offer. That said, I was able to play squash on a regular basis with several different colleagues.