SELINA FINANCE

responsibility and that is really exciting and made it a very useful experience and a real asset

for my CV. I had one direct contact who was really lovely, approachable and useful in

guiding me, but all other members of the team were also very approachable and kind. I was

really pleased to have been invited to a work lunch so I could meet some of my colleagues

face-to-face, which made a big difference!

Daily Life

I managed most of my work through Microsoft Teams, Excel and Word. Every morning at

9am I would log into Teams, get on with my tasks or have a morning meeting with

colleagues. I worked quite independently but with daily check-ins. I tried to stay online all

day, but sometimes took breaks (if the weather was nice) and just worked in the evening

instead, which was fine as long as I attended meetings.

Lasting Impressions

I was a little worried about remote working with people I'd never met before, but I was

really pleasantly surprised by my colleagues who were so lovely and welcoming! The work

was also really interesting, which definitely helps when you don't have much of the social

aspect to spice up your day. Working for them part-time flowed so naturally, it would have

seemed odd to end my work after 2 months, I just became part of the company so quickly.

I'm really glad they felt the same way and kept me on.

Oscar Brisset, Magdalen College, Second Year Undergraduate, BA Philosophy, Politics and Economics, In-person internship

Work Projects

Selina Advance is a start-up that provides a

unique product in Europe called a Home

Equity Line of Credit. They are about to raise

their Series B funding round, and part of this

consists in convincing investors that there

are international growth opportunities. My

job for 9 weeks was determining which countries they should expand to.

Week 1 was induction and getting to know what the start-up does. Week 2-3 was

determining the market size of 30 different countries. Week 4-6 was evaluating market

attractiveness of the 20 largest markets by collecting quantitative indicators (e.g. # credit

cards per person, debt to GDP) and reading relevant articles and reports. Week 7-9 was

preparing the final presentation in which I had 2 slides for each of the top 10 countries

summarising market attractiveness, regulation, funding required to expand to the country,

and my general recommendation.

I was also tasked in Week 2 with creating a template of the suitability letter they sent out to

customers, for this process to be automated. My work consisted of researching 20 different

countries. This meant using Google to find for example the value of a certain indicator, what

kind of lending licence the start-up would require, whether the main competitors already

offered the product, or using Chrome's embedded feature to translate a Japanese

government website so that I could find the market shares of different banks. I came up

with a list of indicators I thought would be useful and then filled out my Excel file of

indicators for each country. Whenever I saw something interesting, I would note it down in

my Word document.

Daily Life

I was very autonomous: I did not have

anyone checking how long I worked or when

I was in the office, and would just have 30

minute check-ins every 2 weeks with the

start-up founders for which I would prepare

a PowerPoint. Usually, I would get to the

office around 9-9:30am. I'd work until 12:30pm, by which point someone would have

already walked up to me to ask if I wanted to go to lunch with them. We would go for lunch

to the market nearby or to a Turkish shop down the road. Seeing as my rented room was

within walking distance of the office I would often go home to cook for myself. I usually took

1 hour lunch breaks (most people at the start-up took 20-30 minutes and would eat at their

desks).

I then worked from 1:30/2pm to 6/7pm. I always made sure I worked 8 hours a day, so if I

arrived later or took a longer lunch break I would stay the necessary time in the evenings.

The start-up organised monthly socials, once renting a party boat on the Thames and the

other time booking a rooftop bar in Shoreditch. Everyone was always dressed with casually

in the office. They had a mini-kitchen with a coffee machine, fruit, cereal bars, and soft

drinks. On Thursdays and Fridays, people would often stay past 6pm drinking beers or would

head to a nearby pub. I sometimes went along but would often go see my friends from Uni

instead. Everyone was super bubbly and made me feel welcome. The culture was one of

honesty over superficial appearances.

Lasting Impressions

I really enjoyed the internship, mainly

because I got along so well with everyone at

the start-up. I was always happy to turn up to

work every day and never dreaded my

deadlines or other work. The task I performed

was interesting in and of itself, and also looks

great on my CV for when I apply to consulting because researching market entry decisions

are a regular task in consulting. The founders were very clear about what they wanted from

me so I never felt lost or unsure what to do when I arrived in the office.

A few times I thought the task was unrealistic for me to complete in the set time, but after

going back to them I realised they expected me to complete a much smaller task. After my

final presentation I went for bubble tea with my 2 managers and they provided me with

really thorough feedback which reassured me a lot about my potential to get into the jobs I

aspire to.

A key thing I learnt was that you don't need to hand in pages upon pages of dense academic

writing to create value for someone: in fact, my managers made it clear they would rather a

PowerPoint with max. 3 sentences on each slide. It's not because the task is easy to do that

you're not doing something useful. People are often just very busy and your contribution is

useful because it saves them time and makes their job easier.

Final year undergraduate, BA Economics and Management, A mixture of inperson and remote working