Maddy Warren - Summer Intern

What attracted you to an Internship at Barclays?
I looked at a couple of the other UK banks and I also looked at a couple of financial services organisations as well, and I mean there are some really good schemes out there. But the Barclays one stood out in that it was very structured, it had a real track of activity for the Interns and it looked like they would give really strong support from start to finish, which once I’d started I found that they did.

They really thought it through, and they offer the interns access to some very high levels of the organisation, and lots of activities that go on through the eight-week internship experience. So at no point would you feel like you where making the tea, or doing anything like that, but you’re a real part of the team that you’re placed with, and I got that impression when I was just researching it and it definitely turned out to be that. So that is why I went to apply for that internship in the end.

What did you do on your internship?
I was placed with the diversity team which is part of the corporate responsibility area and their role is quite broad. They look at ensuring that the bank is complying with all the relevant discrimination legislation, and looking at whether we are doing the best for both our employees and our customers in terms of supporting people from all different backgrounds, people with disabilities, different races, different religions, things like that.

And making sure, really that we are offering as much as we can, so that the people in the bank reflect correctly and equally the people who are our customers, and that we are supporting our customers as well. So it could be anything from making sure that all of our branches are accessible for the people with disabilities, to running schemes within the bank to look at why, for example, women tend to want flexible hours more than men, and looking at how we can arrange that so that employees at the bank can fit their work around their life and not have to sacrifice one for the other.

I was placed with the team there for eight weeks and as part of my work I was involved in various benchmarking exercises that they were doing where we were writing up submissions for various work that Barclays does, and that’s submitted and compared to other organisations and their diversity work.

My main project was to redesign and re-launch their intranet website, which is the main channel of communication with employees across the organisation. So that was what I was mostly involved in doing throughout the eight weeks of the internship and a bit beyond actually.

Why did you choose to join Barclays after you internship?
Well while I was doing the internship itself there was a huge amount of support from everybody I came across which you don’t necessarily expect when you come in as a student and you're only there for a short time. You don’t think that people will get that involved and really care that much about what you're doing there.

But everybody I met really wanted to help or advise or support me throughout that time and I had various people say, you know, if you do want to come back, it would be great if you come and work here and work with us.

And while I was on the internship I found out more about the graduate scheme available and also other schemes that are available for people that want to come in and work whether they’re a graduate or not. And there were so many job roles I could see myself doing that it just felt like a sort of, natural progression to apply after that.

What parts of the internship were useful?
So much of it was useful, I mean it’s a real big step going from a university environment to a working environment and into a professional, nine to five working day, meeting people who have demanding, challenging jobs and they’ve got deadlines to meet and you’ve got to get into that mode quite quickly and fit in with that.

I learnt everything from how to communicate to different people, and if I wanted to get things done the best way to speak with different people to do that. Organisational skills, how to meet deadlines, how to do project planning, how to just meet people and get talking to them and get to know them really quickly so that you can get on and start doing the work that you needed to do. So I think I’ve probably gained a lot of confidence as well during the time.

What support and training did you receive?
We had weekly master classes which were set up by the graduate recruitment team, so over the eight weeks we came to various work shops with senior leaders from across the business who spent an hour, an hour and a half with us talking us through their job role - how they got to where they are at Barclays, any tips they could give us and just generally it gave us the opportunity to talk to them and question them about their careers.

We were also given buddies who were people who had quite recently joined the bank and were there to ask all the silly questions or, if you had any worries you could go to them and they would be a friendly face when you started off. Then of course, we each had our own line manager, it was a relationship as if you were an employee and it was your line manager so we had performance reviews and they were also there to obviously set us our work projects and oversee those throughout the time. So we were very supported and so it was really quite structured.

What qualities do you need to succeed at Barclays?
The people that I’ve met while I’ve been here have had such a wide range of skills and talents and you can learn so much from them but I would say that everybody I have met is passionate about their job, they want to work for Barclays and they love what they do. They’re very driven and motivated and they want to achieve above and beyond what they set out to do but at the same time it’s quite a supportive culture.

I’ve always felt that people always make time to offer, and if you need to talk to them or you need advice about something, they’re available and they’ll make that time for you. Particularly if you’re quite new to the working world, if you like, they understand that when you’re quite young and you’re just starting out that you may not have come across lots of the situations that you might find yourself in.

I’ve never once felt intimidated or overwhelmed by anything there, I think mostly because of that supportive environment, but they are also driven and they’ve got commercial edge and everyone is out to succeed as well so it’s quite an exciting and challenging environment to be in, too.

Who on the internship has inspired you and why?
Well, my immediate line manager who obviously I worked very closely with throughout the internship. I really admire the way that she has set up her life, in terms of she’s got a young child who obviously she does want to be at home with and be involved with bringing her up. But also she’s got a career which she’s established and she’s been very successful in that and she’s got a really good balance between the two areas of her life.

So it’s not all about working 24/7 and never being at home, she hasn’t had to sacrifice either part of her life - her home life or her work life, but she’s achieved a balance there and she does really well.

And that’s something that did surprise me a little because when I first came in I thought everybody would be very kind of work, work all the time and perhaps you had to make a choice between one or the other, but she’s managed to achieve both and to keep going both sides of it very well and that’s something that’s quite impressive to manage it and be successful as she has been. And something that I think is a good example for everybody really, so she was quite inspirational really to me and gave me lots of good advice while I was there as well.