The things I learnt during my internship at RBS -By Vishakha Chourasia from XIMB

“When nothing is sure, everything is possible.” These words by Margaret Drabble say the story of every MBA student who was to intern this summer, and I am no exception. In these uncertain times, I was banking on one of the ‘big four banks’ – The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for an extraordinary internship experience. Despite an ongoing pandemic, the commitment shown by RBS to all the interns strengthened my belief in the company’s values and resilience. Here is a short account of my internship experience at RBS.

My journey started with the internship selection process, which was pretty smooth and straightforward. It consisted of 3 rounds –

1. CV Shortlisting
2. Technical Interview
3. HR Interview

After the selection process was over, all candidates were given some cool RBS goodies -bags, sippers, and notepads. The HR team contacted us a few months before the commencement of the internship and assisted us with the background verification and other formalities that had to be completed. Few days before our internship kick-started, we got the message that the internship would be completely virtual. The entire process of on-boarding was explained to us over a zoom call, and the schedule for induction was also shared.

A well-oiled framework for a seamless experience

On the first day of our internship at RBS, we were told about the company and were also given a chance to talk to the leadership of Portfolio Management. The orientation was designed to be compact, keeping in mind the virtual nature of interactions. At the end of orientation, we were assigned our mentors and buddy managers. In 1-2 days, we were given all the required accesses, and we were good to go.

Once I got two internship projects to work on along with one of the other interns, I had multiple discussions with my mentors about the projects and their expectations from the outcome. I got the opportunity to attend training with the new-joiners and daily meetings with my team.

One of the best parts of the internship was the chance to conduct interviews with more than 40 people from RBS over Zoom. In a virtual internship, it is quite common to limit your interaction with only a few set of people. Still, through these interviews, I got the chance to talk to team leads, portfolio owners, and even employees who worked outside portfolio management. Everyone that I contacted was very welcoming and helpful.

I had a meeting with my mentors on every alternate day, and regular presentations were held with them to ensure that the project outcomes were of the highest quality. I also attended game nights with the wider portfolio management team and some chai-pe-charcha sessions within my team, which helped me know everyone better.

My explicit journey to becoming a better professional

I was apprehensive about the virtual internship at first. However, I believe that the silver lining was that I got to see the bank in action amid a crisis like Covid-19, which I assume is something that will always be unique to my batch. Another unique skill that I acquired was personal resilience. Not only did I learn to keep myself motivated and connected, but I also learned to steer up virtual conversations. Some of the additional work undertaken apart from the projects gave me the hands-on experience to work with the frameworks and tools internal to RBS.

I think that the uncertainty of the situation opened up a whole new world for me. I firmly believe that when there are challenges, there are also learnings that take you to greater heights. This internship at RBS has been unique in a lot of ways, and I am sure that it has made me a better professional and a stronger person.