Barclays Tower

Your Gateway to a Barclays Summer Internship: A Complete Guide

Are you interested in pursuing a career in finance? Do you pass Barclays on your walk to school and long to work for the esteemed multinational bank? Do you hope to one day become a top executive or financial analyst at a Barclays branch?

If any of those options appeal to you, you’re in the right place. This guide explains everything you need to know to get hired as a summer intern at Barclays.

Take the Barclays Internship Assessment Test to improve your score.

Working for Barclays

Barclays is a British bank that specialises in responsible finance, caring banking, sustainability measures and long-term goals. Barclays works with the customer guaranteeing their safety and financial security.

With headquarters stationed in London, Barclays reaches locations in the UK and international locations, including subsidiaries in Kenya, Japan, the US, Tanzania, Germany and Switzerland, to list a few.

Positions at Barclays include, but are not limited to:

  • Contractors
  • Analysts
  • Developers
  • Bankers
  • Researchers

For employees, Barclays selects candidates that exemplify empathetic traits, knowledgeable financial skills, positivity, integrity, and stewardship.

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Barclays Employee Benefits

Some benefits for Barclays employees include:

  • Health benefits
  • Retirement funds
  • Child care assistance
  • Discounts on automobiles and theatre tickets
  • Flexible schedules
  • Citizenship

If any of this caught your eye, keep reading for more information about the internship application process.

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What Is a Barclays Summer Internship?

Student is writing on a paper

Internships are specific to graduates or undergraduate students looking to gain more experience in possible career fields. They allow you to get a first-hand look into what your day-to-day work life could look like and they provide you with experience you cannot access in university.

Barclays offers 12 different internship branches during their summer internship program.

  1. Barclays Payments – Focuses on different payment options, including contactless and wearable payments.
  2. Corporate and Consumer Banking – Specialises in growing corporate clients while promoting the company.
  3. Data and Analytics – Studies data to grow business.
  4. Enabling Functions – Works with different groups to see which parts need to work together to keep a bank open and successful.
  5. Financial Risk and Planning Modelling – Tackles analytical data and develops solutions to larger issues affecting the bank, such as climate change, technology, and various risk factors.
  6. Investment Banking – Deals with international finance, clients, and bank branches.
  7. Markets – Assists clients with risk management.
  8. Operations – Steps into the behind-the-scenes of what it takes to run a bank without major interruptions.
  9. Private Banking – Works for the best interest of individual clients.
  10. Research – Studies different methods of investment and banking and relaying that data to clients.
  11. Retail Banking- Uses different programs with clients. Customer-service driven.
  12. Technology – Researches the newest developments in the technological world to prevent harm and emphasise safety.

Each internship varies between two months and three months stints, pairs interns with line managers, introduces them to workers within their desired field, and lets them work on projects and navigate real-world issues that arise in the workplace.

Getting an internship at Barclays is no easy feat. The process is lengthy and competitive, but Job Test Prep has prepared a user-friendly guide to assist you with interviews, assessments, and aptitude tests. Check out their resources to help you land your dream internship with Barclays.

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What Is the Barclays Internship Application Process?

Step 1 – Resume Submission and Application

Your resume is the first thing a possible employer sees when deciding if you are fit for a role. Your resume needs to include relevant experience, education, and skills. It can include accolades if relevant to the desired position.

Updating your resume regularly is imperative to nailing an interview, and it will make you look competent in the eyes of the employer. Before updating a resume for a possible job, research the position and take note of any keywords. When you revamp your resume, adding keywords illustrates your attention to detail and can impress the employer.

The application asks what makes you stand out above other candidates. Be honest. If you get caught in a lie, it will be difficult to avoid if hired. Answer every question to the best of your ability and highlight your unique qualities. Make the employer want to meet you.

Step 2 – Interviews and Assessments

Based on your resume, Barclays moves forward with assessments or interviews. The assessments vary between candidates but can encompass technical skills, coding efficiency, and numerical knowledge.

If Barclays moves forward with interviews, they offer three kinds:

  1. Phone interview – A recruiter calls you and asks you to speak about your skills, experience, and why you are right for the position. They want to know more about your resume and how you fit Barclays’ mission.
  2. Video interview – A recruiter poses you with several questions and provides you with a short amount of time to gather your answers. You must compose and convey your statements to a video camera.
  3. Competency interview – This interview measures just how well you will fit in the positions. It can utilise presentations or case studies that give the recruiter more information about your competencies in relation to the position. Before the interview begins, you receive a list of skills that will be measured.
  4. Practical Interview – This type of interview wants you to speak more about your resume. You need to focus on the skills and experience that make you the best fit for the position.

Step 3 – Assessment Centre

Once your resume passes through the recruiter, you pass the initial interviews, and your assessments are accepted, it is time to move on to the final step: the Assessment Centre.

The Assessment Centre is exactly how it sounds: a centre you enter to be assessed. Recruiters set you up either in person or online with tests that measure your numerical reasoning, how you act in a group, and your presentation skills. You will also undergo one final interview.

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Interview Practise

two women in the office

We recommend Job Test Prep’s resources to prepare. They have studied all kinds of interviews and consolidated the most important information to succeed in interviews. They break down what comprises a “good” interview answer and what recruiters and employers look for during interviews.

Their interview prep resources break down the different parts of an interview, with a video asset, so you can practice mock video interviews. It’s a good idea to prepare some questions you might have about the company in your interview.

Asking informed questions about a position alerts the recruiter that you did your research on the position and are serious about pursuing an internship with the company.

Other places to practice interviews are in mirrors and with friends and family.

See more about interview prep packages here.

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What Are the Different Barclays Internship Assessments?

Aside from four kinds of interviews, Barclays also offers applicants five different kinds of timed aptitude assessments to determine if they advance to the next round of hiring.

  1. Situational Judgement Test (SHT) – This test measures the way you react in real-life scenarios. It focuses on behaviour and cognitive reasoning. This test recognises the way you act around people when faced with different situations. It comes in handy when testing how competent someone will be with customer-service tasks. Read scenarios carefully and be honest in your answers.
  2. Personality Tests – Barclays assesses different personality types of candidates to see where they best fit in the business. These tests pose questions based on your communication styles, decision makings, preferences, behaviour, and work ethic. Again, it is important to be yourself, take your time, and answer honestly.
  3. SHL Numerical Reasoning Tests – SHL numerical examinations use charts, graphs, and data to frame questions. You need to know information about decimals, multiplication, addition, division, subtraction, equations, percentages, and fractions. Call back all basic maths skills to ace this test.
  4. SHL Logical Reasoning Test – SHL Logic exams apply reason to equations. These tests favour patterns, sequences, and problem-solving skills. For example, say a question shows a picture of a triangle, a square, a pentagon, or a hexagon and then asks which shape comes next. Take your time to analyse the problem, find the similarity between all the shapes and move forward with your answer. The shapes increase one vertex at a time, so the next logical answer is a heptagon.
  5. SHL Verbal Reasoning Test – The verbal SHL assessment asks test-takers to read sections, digest the information and answer questions based on the given information. This test records how well you notice context clues and how you think critically. Questions have three options: true, false, or cannot say.

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How Can You Prepare for the Barclays Internship Assessments?

Paper and Pen

You can always study old exams, and review coursework in verbal, maths, and logic disciplines to prepare for these tests, but you will have a better chance at success if you look into online programs. Job Test Prep has formulated packages, including practice tests in every discipline and study guides with elaborate explanations.

Before taking any assessments, make sure you get adequate sleep, eat a balanced meal, remember to breathe, and take your time.

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What Happens at the Barclays Internship Assessment Centre?

Numerical Reasoning Exam

If you got this far in the internship application process, pat yourself on the back. You made it to the final stage.

You have 35 minutes to complete the CEB SHL numerical test. This exam consists of facts and figures relating to numerical data. These tests measure your skills with mathematical data and see if your results match your first numerical aptitude tests taken in step two.

To prepare for this, search for past CEB SHL tests online and review the material you studied for your aptitude assessments.

Group Projects and Exercises

Who doesn’t love a group project?

When working in a bank, you need to be able to adapt to the behaviour and traits of others. Whether you work one-on-one with a private client or you work in a research group, teamwork is necessary. The recruiters at Barclays need to see how you work in a group setting before they take you on to the team.

Your group will be introduced to an issue that needs a solution and you have to work together to come up with a probable fix for the problem. Recruiters notice the different mannerisms, techniques, communication styles, and attitudes you use during this exercise and base decisions from there.

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Presentations

During presentations, you have the opportunity to demonstrate knowledge of your favoured program. You will be both a presenter and an audience member. However, Barclays encourages you to ask as many questions as you wish—they want you to show off your curiosity.

Final Interview

A final interview concludes the application process for Barclays Summer Internship Program. This interview can be practical—emphasising skills on your resume, or it can be competency-based—evaluations based on previous experiences/ case studies/ research.

This is your last chance to impress a recruiter and earn yourself a spot at one of the most competitive summer internships. Make sure you illustrate what makes you unique, why you fit in with Barclays’ values, why they should choose you, and any specialties you will bring to the table if chosen for hire.

Show your excitement! They will remember an enthusiastic candidate over an apathetic one. Also, take the time to ask the recruiter any questions you may have.

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Wrapping Up

Now that you know everything about the Barclays summer internship process, get started on your application today! If all goes well during your internship, you could secure a full-time position at the esteemed company.

To utilise Job Test Prep’s resources click here.

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