May 22, 2015, by Bety Mehide
My Spring Insight Day With Barclays
By Bety Mehide, student blogger
As the title may suggest in this post I will talk about the Barclays spring week that I participated in at the end of March. The programme was in the bank’s technology division and even though I study economics, I don’t have a lot of technical knowledge.
But let’s start from the beginning. What did I have to do to get on the spring insight?
Making an application
The application process was fairly simple, I had to:
- Complete an online application with three questions and a CV;
- Take an inductive reasoning test (yes, no numerical), situational judgment test and a personality questionnaire;
- Go through two strengths-based telephone interviews.
Was it worth it and what did I learn?
I must say yes it was and the reasons are quite obvious. The insight gave me a chance to get to know what the technology department in a bank does more thoroughly, see how the work environment is in Barclays, meet some amazing people from different stages of their career and develop some soft skills while having fun.
In the technology department in Barclays a graduate can have two roles: a developer or a business analyst. The first requires more technical skills like programming and the latter is, as the name suggests, more analytical. Moving between the two roles is fairly easy and encouraged by Barclays. But what amazed me was the level to which technology is used in the bank. They have started to divert away from travelling a lot and relay more on online meetings. The bank really invests in its technology department and it was interesting to hear about all the different projects they have going on right now.
Work shadowing was the highlight of the programme for me; it gave me the chance to see what everyday life is like at the bank. Each team is different and that influences the day to day experience, but overall they seemed very welcoming and friendly. People were also very honest and open; they didn’t try to avoid discussing the down sides of the job but instead looked at them as a chance of development. What I liked the most was the fact that people on the internship and graduate programme kept in touch even though they now worked in different departments.
There was also a chance to work on some soft skills, such as what to keep in mind while networking and presenting. The knowledge I gained could be put in use during the week and I feel like I really got some useful advice and practice from that.
Moving forward
In terms of the future, I can now picture myself in a technology department in a bank. I used to think that I am not the type of person to work in such an environment and would prefer consulting but this view changed during the week as I saw that the work place was nothing I thought it would be. The work that the technology department in Barclays does is very diverse, which is why it seems so interesting for me. For those of you who can and want to do a spring week next year, Barclays is definitely one company worth considering!
If you want to gain some work experience through an insight week, work shadowing or placement visit our website and talk to our team. We are here all summer and can help you through every stage of the recruitment process.
This is a really insightful blog post, thanks! It’s interesting to hear about the initial applciation stages and what’s involved. It’s also interesting to see what Bety did on her work experience with such a large corporation, as well as the focus Barclays is putting on technology. I also found this site to be useful as it has a lot of information, not just about insight schemes, but also about banking placements and internships http://www.ratemyplacement.co.uk/banking