Securities Spring Intern Review

This was my first experience in the financial services industry and I think I had the best time I can ever have while working. It was very intense but everything was so interesting that time literally flew by. I did not know I could learn as much as I did in just 9 days.

I still find it amazing that we met so many senior people. By this I do not mean just MDs, but also many partners, global heads of the division etc which really made me feel like GS puts a lot of emphasis and work on getting to know their interns and show them how their future could be like as many of these meetings had Q&As etc.

The Graduate Recruitment Team was there for anything we needed during the whole internship. But not only this. GS also assigned each one of us a "Buddy" so that we could have more informal talks, ask anything or just have a closer firm from inside the firm. Very good idea to get in touch with the firm before starting the internship.

I only rate this question as an 8 instead of another 10 because I am studying Electrical & Electronic Engineering. Therefore, the skills and information I received will only partially assist in my degree studies, but considering now after the internship I really want to build a career in the financial services industry, the skills I developed and the information I received are invaluable. 11/10.

The insight was very well structured, having on the first day briefings and meetings to get to know the firm in general and the different divisions and on the second day a similar structure but focusing only on getting to know my division in general (Securities). From there on, we had briefings on different products and desks as well as desk rotations to get to know as much as we could of the trading floor. Although for me, the most important part of how it was structured was the free time we were given. In this way, we were free to roam across the trading floor and were able to sit with whatever desk we wanted to get an insight of, making networking with pretty much anyone really simple.

At the start I was intrigued as how the atmosphere could be as I could imagine it being super competitive and people just wanting to stand out. It happened to be nothing like that. We were told from the start that there was no limit on the number of places for the Summer Programme and throughout the whole programme everyone was super friendly and helping each other out in case of need. Made really good friends there.

As I mentioned earlier on, from my point of view the firm really did invest a lot on us as a huge amount of really senior people came to have breakfast, briefings and meetings with us to tell us about their experiences and teach us about the sector as a whole.

A vast majority of the people working there come from Spring and Summer internships. I had loads of conversations with analysts about when they did their Summer internship, how it was like and how it is like now that they are working as analysts. Therefore I can say that I have a clear idea of how it would be like to have a full time role with the firm.

As mentioned before, clear flat organisation structure where next to your desk as an analyst you can have the global head of FX trading or anyone in general. Diversity plays a fundamental role on all aspects and the business principles are sacred in terms of culture.

I think it is pretty easy to see for yourself if this is an industry you would like to work in in the future. It is super fast-paced, no day is the same and you have to be very fast thinking and have good social skills in order to succeed. If it is not made for you, you will notice very very fast.

I was paid and reimbursed expenses. Not only was I paid but also GS paid for both tickets to go and come back to my home country, Spain.

As I have been saying throughout the review, I constantly met new people, from any background, desk or position in the firm. Everyone was really easy to approach, although of course you had to look for a good time to approach people as sometimes they can be super busy and cannot engage with you even if they want to.

We had a couple of firmwide networking/social events where we met other interns from all other divisions as well as Securities-only networking event like having some drinks at a pub next door with some senior people. All of them really well planned and with great opportunities to network and make friends.

Indeed. We found out about charity work that the firm provides to its employees outside work as well as the Affinity programs to get to know other people from the firm outside work.

I think it is pretty obvious I would definitely recommend this insight to a friend from my comments. I'd like to go back.