Commercial Finance Intern Review

The placement year was the best I could have asked for. The experience and the exposure that we have been given to the business has been brilliant.

I had a really great team where interns were a major part in all of the team functions. We were valued as highly as any other team memeber and particularly in our team we had so many team events and opportunities to get to know each other and gain more of a friendship.

I have had two different managers and both of them have been 100% supportive. They have encouraged me to ask as many questions as possible and take on more tasks and opportunities as they come. They also have really helped with personal problems that I had during the placement which goes far beyond what is necessary.

There are certain times in the year or month where I have been far too busy, particularly at Budget and Year end periods, but it has always been manageable and on a day to day basis completely comfortable for me to stay busy but not be stressed.

I had tasks and experiences which were completely my own, one in particular that was completely new and I was given the chance to create and maintain a new reporting task. When you first start you are given basic small responsibilities of updating files and then gradually you are given more opportunities and more things to build upon in order to personally develop. By the end of the placement the interns become an integral part in team and therefore company functions.

University skills are a bit different because my degree is very theory based and involves a lot more essay based learning and assessments, where as my role at work has been much more practical and involved more analysis of results. It is far more likely that these skills will help me in the future for my career. Before Travelport I had never had any experience in Finance, including at university for modules. Now I know what job titles mean when I am applying for new roles, how to understand and analyse financial data and I have a greater understanding of the travel industry, as well as all of the personal skills and development that I have gained.

There was always a friendly jokey atmosphere in the team but when it was busy and we needed to everyone pitched in and made sure that tasks were completed on time and were to a high standard.

For our group it was only the second year of having interns but there were never any problems for me in my role. They are still learning what works and what doesn't, but given that fact it still seems to be working really well and they are finding more ways to help interns to gain great experience.

We were given workshop days where we had talks from various other finance departments, HR aspiring manager training and general opportunities to develop our skills. There were various occations where we gave presentations and had meetings with senior leadership. The program is dedicated to the interns learning experience.

At the moment the opportunities aren't as good as they could be. There are one or two jobs in other divisions of finance but a lot of the roles in the team I have been in require qualified members of staff. I think this is something that will change as more interns come in to the company and want to stay on.

Everyone socialised together and we did meet up outside of work for birthdays and events.

It's not cheap. The main area of socialising is in Windsor and Windsor is definitely not cheap. A lot of us lived in London so travel was our major cost but in the area things are cheaper.

Not so good. The main area to go out is Windsor and that wasn't great. But still nice for pubs and things like that.

As well as team events there were also opportunities with the work social club which were actually really good and there is always new stuff going on.