Intern, Industrials & TMT

The bank initially contacted me via phone, someone from HR who scheduled the interview with 3 people from the coverage group I was interviewing for (Industrials & TMT): the MD and the two main Senior VP's. No technical questions asked, the chats were very informal and the interviewers were nice people who weren't out to get you with the questions. This seems to be par for the course in Commercial Banking. The MD did toss a couple questions out there like "What job would you want if you didn't have to worry about being qualified enough or money". Overall very straightforward. I interviewed on Thursday and got a call on Monday from HR offering me the internship. Interviews were 1-on-1 with each of the 3 people in succession, each lasting between 20-30 minutes and overall about 1.25 hours in length. This is a UK bank and two of my interviewers were impressed when I asked them good, thoughtful questions about some of the current events of the bank. Lloyds doesn't have a formal investment banking presence in the states; it might have changed slightly in the past year, but the IB of Lloyds is informally rolled into the commercial arm. Know your Excel and PowerPoint and you will get far here, because you're assisting the RM's (relationship managers) who are constantly targeting and pitching prospects while doing annual review presentations with existing clients (i.e., PowerPoint and Excel will be open on your work-issued computer 90% of the workday).

But these guys don't just work hard, they play hard too. During a slow week the MD would take us out for lunch and drinks esp. if it was a nice sunny day out. We'd just get drunk and tell stories and laugh and order food and drink more. After a 3+ hour lunch, the MD would call it a day and head to his riverfront apartment while a Senior VP would head to the airport to fly out to Portland where one of our clients was, and the rest of us headed back to the office under the guise of working but really just messing around and eating all of the refreshments in the office for beer munchies.

Therefore, the work environment can be very social and very casual. You will not fit in especially well (although they are too nice to say anything about it) if you are the type who doesn't like to go out for the occasional drink or trade gossip with your co-workers.

The office is on the 34th and 35th floors (34th is front office, 35th is mid and back office) of the MetLife building (1095 Avenue of the Americas, NY, NY 10036). There are cubicles but the walls are relatively low, so if you stand up you can see pretty much everyone on your side of the office (office layout was a small core of offices for the senior bankers in the middle with cubicles on all 4 sides. There are decent views here. You will sometimes run into the CEO and the Global Head of the Americas division of Lloyds in the elevators and/or on the floors because the US arm of Lloyds bank is much smaller than the original UK division and you will get to know probably 70-100% of the people on your floor.