IB EMEA OO - Management Office Review

My time with UBS has been invaluable through offering me challenges and a stimulating environment. UBS has a pool of highly intelligent people but what differentiated UBS were the culture and their attitude towards sharing knowledge. Time was always made for me to ask questions and explore various areas of the organisation. This made my time with UBS extremely beneficial and enjoyable.

I couldn't have been welcomed more by the teams I worked with and the people who I met over the summer. This allowed me to relax and express myself which in turn enabled my teams to fully utilise my potential and capability. I would be pushed with new work daily and continually asked for my opinion. Also, I was always included on calls and meetings to help me learn more from those around me and each week I would have catch-up meetings with my team and line-manager. During these meetings the focus was on me and how I was feeling about anything in general, not just work specific issues. This time was very important and reassuring, showing that my team cared and wanted to see me progress in a number ways (work capability, work-life balance, networking).

Alongside the catch up meetings my managers and other contacts all had an 'open door' policy where I just asked for a few minutes of their time. My manager and other senior individuals offered time to chat about career development and opportunities surrounding my role. This time helped direct my other activities such as meeting people from other teams and getting involved in extra activities offered by UBS, such as when I took part in community affairs, volunteering at a local school sports day. These conversations and experiences helped me to develop my own set of criteria as to what I want from a company and the role I will be doing.

It was important to me to be honest and realistic with the amount of work I could take on. There are numerous projects and tasks available daily and my workload depended upon how I managed my time. Having shown myself to be competent my team then allocated work to me which would require me planning a few days to over a week in advance. The nature of my work placed me in communication with individuals across EMEA and working alongside different members of my team on various projects. This provided exposure to other opportunities which I could get involved with.

I was surprised with the level of work I was involved in and exposed to. Each project was crucial and my work contributed to the team with it being passed up the chain to senior management for use on their work and meetings or it was used for activities facing outwards to regulators and clients. (Depending what team I was with) Knowing this added pressure but positively challenged me to perform.

The personal growth I have observed in myself over the internship will allow me to approach projects and my studies with a greater confidence. I now know that I can manage and complete various workloads within given timescales and do so to a high standard while also being capable of extracting critical information from conversations and documents. These are skills which I can use daily and in any future role to improve the quality of the work I produce.

My team provided a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere where worked was intertwined with conversation. My first rotation was in a quieter section of UBS where my team had recently been relocated to new desks and so had their own section of the floor. My 2nd rotation was on the Equities trading floor and the lively and vibrant atmosphere here was a welcome change. Being able to experience two extremes challenged my ability to work and also gave me an insight as to what I would prefer to be involved in for my future career.

How well organised was the overall work placement or internship set up? My internship was well planned out and packed full of additional learning. My manager arranged for me to be placed on additional training aligned to ICS to provide me with a greater insight to that side of the business as it would benefit me more in the future work of my team.

As mentioned in a previous point, my manager placed me in additional training which benefited for conducting work with other teams later in my internship. Also the training sessions and materials provide during my induction/training week are of a high quality which provided additional learning material outside of my immediate role. Overall I feel UBS invested a lot of time and resources (personnel and financially) in myself over the internship, providing me a platform on which to build to add further value to myself.

In my personnel view I feel UBS is an immensely strong organisation with great opportunities for employment and opportunities for movement within the firm. I feel there is a lot on offer and the ability to experience many different areas of the industry while under one roof is a great bonus.

Many of the interns planned different nights out during the summer but mostly the last minute spontaneous nights out after work for a catch up were the best. The area surrounding the offices hosts an abundant variety of choices and with good travel connections, heading off to do other things in the evening was very easy.

London is expensive compared to the rest of the nation and so that part of life during the internship is to be expected and planned for. UBS have a strong network with many bars, restaurants and events promotions companies meaning as a UBS employee I could make use of 25% discounts at a number of locations immediately around the office and further across London. Near the offices there was a good variety of options over food and Broadgate circle being recently re-developed was a pleasant place to come to work in.

As you would expect for London. Alot of bars and restaurants in the immediate area of UBS and then London has its own nightlife selection depending what area you are in. Though I was surprised with the great selection of events on in the evening that are different to your normal student city. This helped keep the mid=week evenings interesting and distract from work the next day.

UBS has a number of teams working continually on community affairs which are easily available to get involved with. I travelled to Bridge Academy which is sponsored bu UBS and helped the staff run the schools sports day. During and after working hours UBS provides a number of interesting speaker events. I seen David Coulthard and Victoria Pendleton which was surprising to hear of the parallels between their career in sports and the financial industry.