By Emma Marsden (BSc Economics & Finance) and Clare Purser (BSc Economics & Finance)
Ever wondered what it’s like to work for a billion-plus pound business? To help you all fulfil this curiosity we are here to share our stories. I (Clare) interned in the Business Intelligence team for Aviva, and I (Emma) interned in the Planning and Reporting team for Nestlé UK – and here’s what happened…
Clare here!
So, I worked for Aviva for 6 weeks and I was working in the Business intelligence division. Before I delve too far in, I will first cover a bit about the application process.
My Careers Central advertised the job as a UEA internship with Aviva. The application entailed writing a covering letter and sending my CV and then an interview in the following week. The job advert mentioned showing an ability to work with Microsoft Office and having a curiosity to learn. In my CV I added the Excel online courses I had completed and as UEA students you have access to LinkedIn learning so why not use it?
Stage 2 was a video interview which is where you record yourself answering pre-set questions to a blank screen. Aviva uses strength-based recruitment so guess what? The interview was strength-based!! I would not let this part worry your strengths show naturally because you enjoy them and have enthusiasm when talking about them. If you want to be initiative-taking you could take a strengths test to show you your strengths more clearly and help guide you to realise them further.
One final application tip from me! Turn your phone off silent so you can hear when phone calls bearing good news come!
Now I have covered the application process, let us move onto the best bit, the actual work!
Day 1: I was waiting for my tech. With it being corporate equipment there are extra steps to get the laptop up and running for security purposes. Somebody will be on the other end of a phone to help you so don’t let yourself worry about this.
Day 2: I met with the other interns and we all introduced ourselves and I was the one who forgot to unmute myself oops!
For the next few days, we were completing the essential training to get us started such as an introduction to general insurance, understanding Aviva branding and the anti-racism training.
Having completed my training, my mentor/line manager gave me my first task. This entailed me setting up meetings to ask lots of questions about the different reinsurance treaties and formalise the information into a spreadsheet. I used these meetings to firstly get the task done and, if there was extra time, I would ask them about their job and what they do. Having quizzed what felt like most of the Aviva staff I used Excel’s conditional formatting to produce a Gantt chart (my mentor helped me get on the right track with that one!) and adding data validation for dropdowns and cell notes. Another project I was involved in was contributing to the Aviva podcast ‘An intern special’ which gave me the chance to chat with some of the other interns from various universities and listen to their experiences and thoughts.
While I did have my set tasks to do when I had time to spare, I used it to:
- Continue my learning via Aviva University and LinkedIn learning.
- Talking with those enrolled on the Aviva graduate schemes and UEA Eco alumni.
- Look at the recent news involving Aviva such as the 5-year strategic partnership with the Darwin innovation group- Aviva and Darwin announce five-year strategic partnership – Aviva plc
- On my final day, it was half-year results so I watched the Aviva videos explaining the results as well as some of the press releases- Half-year results 2021 – Aviva plc
Each week all the interns would meet with the internship coordinator (who was fantastic by the way) to cover different employability skills and tips and tricks to help us on our way to (hopefully) entering the Aviva graduate schemes. Some interns were in the office, we all got a look at the Gherkin as the London office is right next door!
At Aviva well-being is particularly important and there were so many resources out there. I attended their exercise classes via Zoom which was a challenging workout! But I was also able to take part in their other well-being events such as the well-being Olympics which helped me integrate as part of the community and enjoy the social side of work.
From the team social perspective, there was a weekly catch up to chat, judge group challenges set by each other and rate a set movie we watched that week. This was great fun, but I will admit not all the movies were my favourite! But in this virtual working world it can very quickly get very lonely so try to attend these.
Emma here
I’d always had my aspirations to work for Nestlé so had been keeping an eye on their website for opportunities. It was before the Christmas break the applications for finance interns opened, the advert asked for a head for figures and plenty of confidence when it comes to processing and interpreting data’… and so the application process began. Initially, I had to fill in an application with basic details such as education history, submit a CV and write a cover letter. Once passed this stage I had to complete several psychometric tests online. These involved using Mathematics, English, and interpersonal skills to assess your suitability for the role you’re applying for. They were daunting but practice as much as you can, careers central have some great online resources which you should have a go at before doing the real thing. Have a look at Graduates First via the university for some free tests to try? here is the link https://bit.ly/3xjZp0k.
Next up: video interview. This involved you answering pre-set questions in front of your camera under a time limit. You had roughly 2 minutes to read the question, jot down notes and prepare an answer. Then you had 5 minutes to answer the question. This sounds scary, and doesn’t seem like a lot of time, but if you go in prepared it’ll be fine. Beforehand jot down your ambitions, why you want to work for the company and why you would be a good addition (your strengths) as these were the main questions asked. If you are proactive and let your passion come across it’ll help you speak more confidently and come across more knowledgeable.
The final stage was an assessment centre day; this involved the top 8 candidates for the 2 roles completing a strengths-based interview and a presentation. For a strengths-based interview, I would recommend using the CARL technique to answer questions: Context, Action, Result and Learning. Think of a situation where you used one of your strengths, say what you did in that scenario, what the outcome was and what you took from that experience. Details of the presentation topic were released 24 hours before the day began; therefore keep it short and simple. At the end of the day, there was a Q&A session with a current Nestlé employee. I would be lying if I said this process was easy, but it was very much worth it.
My main task during my experience was to streamline the royalty’s calculation process (i.e. how much Nestlé UK pays to Nestlé SA for branding). This developed my excel skills and allowed me to improve my professional communication as I worked with other teams such as accounts, tax, and IT services. This was completed with help from my line manager, with whom I had nearly daily meetings. We would discuss progress, what other challenges I could take on and who else in the team I could speak with. The rest of my time was spent learning as much as possible through assisting other team members with their work. The best part was being given real responsibility that affected the business and being able to leave behind work which is still being used even though my internship has finished.
Socially, it wasn’t always the easiest. Being 100% virtual made it tricky but there was a weekly team meeting to check in with everyone and it was simple to have meetings with other employees. Working full time and using a screen all day was tiring. It affected my out of work social life for the first few weeks but after a month I was back to socialising frequently and my usual energetic self.
My advice? Grab every opportunity you can. Say yes to as many chances as possible and don’t give up. Securing an internship in the finance department of a billion-pound business like Nestlé isn’t easy and the application process takes a long time but it’s worth every hour. The experience you gain is invaluable, the people you can meet are incredible and it’s astonishing how satisfying it is to see a product you have helped get to the consumer in a supermarket.
Clare here
So, now you have had your whistle-stop tour of internships, what did you think? What are your next steps? If you are still unsure you can always go to My Careers Central or even have a chat with any of your lecturers.
There’s lots of learning and earning ahead!
Banner Image by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash