Bank that postponed its 2020 internship finds interesting alternative

If you were supposed to have an internship at Santander's corporate and investment bank (CIB) this year, you will initially have been disappointed. 

Back in late March, as full lockdowns threatened, Santander wrote to the 52 students who were due to come for summer internships in its corporate and investment bank and commercial bank and informed them that it had been compelled to "reassess" its plans for a 10 week internship in 2020. Instead, Santander said disappointed interns would automatically be invited to an assessment day to determine whether they could join the 2021 graduate scheme.

In actuality, Santander has been able to offer something more. Instead of the ten week internship program and in place of propelling this year's interns directly into assessment centres for graduate places, it's hit upon the alternative of offering an intense 'virtual internship week' this September as a replacement for the cancelled internship programme. Assessment centres will take place subsequent to this.

Fundamentally, therefore, the internship has effectively become a primer for the assessment experience.

Santander's 'assessment centre primer' variation on an internship comes after other banks appear to have problems differentiating between students on virtual intern programmes. Interns at one bank tell us they still haven't heard back on full time job offers, over a month after their internships finished. - Santander's option, of an information week and then some hardcore assessment might work best if virtual internships have to happen again.

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