Polly's press & media appearances
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Self-flagellation and the City
Rediscover your Passion - Go It Alone
Finansmiljøet i London - et Jobbhelvete
Fear and Loathing in the Heart of the city
My Glittering City Career Turned into Golden Handcuffs
Do Women Really Get a Raw Deal in the City?
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Taste of high life in City can seduce interns 2nd September 2006 by John Willman, Business Editor As the 2006 intern season draws to a close, ambitious undergraduates who have spent the summer on work experience schemes are returning to university for their final year. Their host employers will be assessing their calibre and, in many cases, making job offers in the autumn to sign up the top talent before graduation. This year's season has achieved a higher than normal profile thanks to one intern in the City of London. Lucy Gao, an engineering student at Balliol College, Oxford, provided entertainment for bankers during the quiet days of August after an e-mail about her 21st birthday party went round the world on the internet. Ms Gao had invited fellow interns at Citigroup to a champagne reception at the Ritz, advising them to dress 'more upper class' to avoid being denied entry by hotel staff. This led to spoof invitations to birthday parties at less salubrious venues such as McDonald's in Brixton. Her careful choreographed timetable setting strict arrival times for groups of guests at 15 minute intervals resulted in the sale of T-shirts online bearing messages such as: 'Lucy Gao kicked me out of the Ritz (I arrived at 9.01pm).' A tacky video made by Ms Gao and fellow women students to promote engineering at Oxford found its way onto YouTube, the video-sharing website. Ms Gao will have learnt an important lesson from her internship about caution in the use of e-mail. But many interns find themselves seduced into an unsuitable career by the taste of high living in the City, says Polly Courtney, a former analyst whose fictional account of life at an investment bank, Golden Handcuffs, will be published in November. As an engineering student at Cambridge, MS Courtney spent the summer before graduating as a Merrill Lynch intern, earning £7,000 for an eight-week stint. "They worked us hard, but not too hard," she says. "There were some late nights but there were also a couple of social events each week - pub crawls, meals in nice restaurants and a 'Monkey Island' awayday." In retrospect, Ms Courtney realises it was an eight-week interview, with most of the 30 interns being offered jobs on graduation. She started in 2002 on £37,500 a year with a £7,500 'golden hello' - and, at first, all went well.
But the reality of working for an investment bank was exhaustingly long hours and a macho City culture where sexism was rife. Now a part-time consultant and novelist, she has some advice for today's interns. "Look at the full-time people for warning signs - if they look miserable and tired, think hard about what you want to do." Not all interns work in the City - many businesses outside financial services are equally keen to cherrypick the best graduates. And students increasingly see building up a record of placements with top companies as important as a good degree. Internships can play a valuable role in a graduate's career, says Robin Good, education director at the Cambridge-MIT Institute, a joint venture between the universities to promote innovation. Internships could help successful graduates acquire 'self-efficacy' - understanding of how best to apply their knowledge. But many fail to learn from their placements. A study of 400 interns found no net benefit overall, though some had reaped rewards. "There is enormous scope for improvement by getting it right," says Mr Good, who adds that host companies also benefit from well-managed internships. His recipe for success is to give interns authentic work experience, stretching them rather than just doing a humdrum job. They must be related to the course of study, and genuine feedback is essential. "If you integrate clever, motivated students into an organisation and they gain from it, they will probably be doing good work for you," he says. "If they're fetching coffee and doing the photocopying, they'll gain little, and so will you." |
Polly's TV & Radio appearances
From Engineer to Investment Banker to Novelist
Berliner Zeitung Magazin, 2007
I Know the Pressure Matthew was Under
I Sold My Soul to the City - then Wanted it Back
Banker Novel Shows it's not all Success in the City
Taste of High Life in City can Seduce Interns
City Woman who quit City over Sexism admits Lapdancing
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