Hi Tanita! Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. Could you please tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name is Tanita Mtileni. I am a senior majoring in economics and also trying to double major in African studies if I can make that happen before I graduate. I'm from Malawi in Africa.
How was your experience at Santander Bank as a Commercial Banking intern? What is the firm culture like and how did the application process go?
I'll try to answer this in reverse. The application process was very quick and easy. I found the opportunity through Handshake and I submitted my resume and cover letter. Then, I was contacted by a recruiter with their Boston, State Street, offices for interviews. That's when I received the offer and I accepted. The internship experience was really good, especially given that it had to be in a virtual format and it was shortened from ten weeks to six. Regardless, it was a great experience. I got to experience the company culture. What I can say about the company culture is that a lot of the bankers have a very collaborative spirit. They have invested in mentoring new talent and also retaining talent there. A lot of hard work, passion, and industry knowledge, which is very impressive. There's an opportunity to learn about basically anything you can learn about just by going to a manager or to a peer. Having access to all this training at all times, having access to webinars by the chairperson of the board, and those types of resources. The internship was very packed because it was ten weeks compressed to six, this was a little bit challenging given the virtual format and not being able to have conversations or interactions that are way better done face to face, and with everyone was still adjusting, but we managed to work through it.
What exactly does a commercial banking intern do and what does your day to day look like?
Commercial banking interns get placed in different departments within the commercial bank. I was placed in the New England Middle Market department. Most interns do different things, given that we are all placed in different departments working with different managers, so I can only speak for myself and what I did day to day during my internship. It was comprised of completing all the required compliance and risk training, attending meetings with my manager weekly, and listening to the head of commercial banking. He would deliver weekly phone calls like market calls to update us with all the business the commercial bank is doing. That's when I had the opportunity to learn about other sectors at the commercial bank. I worked on two main projects. One was a group intern project which was mostly a research project. Then, I worked on an individual project with my own managers and that was working on syndicated deals that the department relationship managers had, and that was analyzing some financial statements, going out to find information, really just educating myself more about what they do with the business, and leveraging client opportunities.
What is the most important thing that you learn at Santander Bank?
I think the most important thing that I learned at Santander Bank is that it's important to be a self-starter or to be self-motivated because information doesn't just land in your lap. You have to go look for it and you have to be willing to put in the work to learn. If you come across a term you don't fully understand and Google is very convoluted, then you have to have that type of self-starting mindset to go out and find a way to figure out what you need to do and I think that's what I really learned in Santander. It's what my mentors and my bosses really taught me to do. It was just being able to identify where I was lacking in knowledge or where I needed further clarification and being able to be in control of my own learning and control my own experience.
When and how did you know that you wanted to pursue something in the finance industry?
I knew I wanted to pursue something in the finance industry, closer to the end of my sophomore year. The way that it happened was I was subscribed to Investment Society emails *laughs*. Also, I'm an econ major so I know a lot of people that are econ majors at Wellesley are actually interested in finance too so just by being at tables where people are having conversations about recruiting and about past internship experiences. I had a lot of senior friends at the time who are going into the field so I was able to have so many conversations and hear about finance and the finance sector and how there are endless opportunities within the industry. I think that's what really made me more interested. It's funny because I've been confused ever since about what I wanted to do in finance, which is the downside of it being so diverse. I've moved from being interested in investment banking to wealth management to commercial banking than corporate banking. I've kind of been interested in a little bit of everything over the past couple of years.
Is there any advice that you could give to students who are interested in finance about what activities they should do or what experiences that they should expose themselves to if they are interested in a career in finance?
Especially for younger people, I really recommend going to like insight meetings with finance companies. I went to a couple of those and I think that was a very important experience for me to have because I was in the New York offices, I was talking with analysts, I was talking with managers, I was talking with senior bankers and learning about their experiences. I think it was really inspiring to hear that the regular people or people who had gone through similar life experiences as I had also made it in the industry. It's another way also to start to establish connections with recruiters and other people who are going through recruiting. That way you can share different opportunities when applications start to get posted. For activities, I really recommend subscribing to the Investment Society mailing list and joining organizations on campus. Also, going to events like going to ESA events, for example, is where I started to hear like finance, finance, finance. Just being open to hearing about people's experiences in spaces like the Economic Student Association meetings and through Investment Society is a great way to gain exposure.
How did you find your first finance internship?
My internship at Santander was actually my first finance internship. It was just through this whole recruiting process—being on Handshake, being on LinkedIn, looking at where people are applying, talking with other people who are going through the process. I think one of the best things to do when you want to go through finance recruiting is to surround yourself with other people who are going through the same experiences because it gets really tiring and it's so easy to get discouraged. But, there are so many opportunities that you find you eventually end up where you are actually supposed to be because you learn something from every experience you can get.
For our last question, what is your favorite quarantine activity?
My favorite quarantine activity is definitely cooking. I like cooking at home a lot and experimenting with all types of recipes and ingredients. I think it's a great stress reliever too, especially now with virtual school and all that.
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