Caroline Tocher picked up the Student Intern of the Year Award in the Employability Category at the Santander Universities annual awards night in London earlier this month.

The Santander Student Impact Awards are designed to celebrate students who have made a positive impact in their internship. The assessment criteria for the award required students to have an understanding of the aims and objectives they wanted to achieve throughout the internship and be able to demonstrate how they achieved these.

Matthew Hutnell, Director of Santander Universities, alongside Manroop Khela, Chief Transformation Officer at Santander UK presented Caroline with the award for her work during her 10-week internship with Business Fives.

Business Fives strives to foster a learning environment, teaching students the skills they need to propel them into the working world post university.  Having worked alongside Santander Universities to provide students with internships for the last 3 summers.

Caroline said “I started Business Fives with very little practical experience in business and set a list of goals and skills I wanted to learn that I could add on my CV to make me more employable. This ranged from something as small as growing my Linkedin contacts to learning how to use WordPress. One by one I would approach John with a new ask and over the ten-week period we ticked them all off. Because of the support I received through the internship I have now developed a wide variety of practical skills. This ranges from proficient use of Word Press, Canva, Excel and SEO. I can also now say I have a proven track record of hitting sales targets, and have additionally been given the responsibility to have creative reign over design projects, writing press releases, designing marketing material, and building and maintaining relationships with clients and charities.”

Caroline came on board Business Fives after attending a Bright Red Triangle networking event at Edinburgh Napier University, where she completed her master’s degree in Business Management with Entrepreneurship. She is the second Edinburgh Napier University student to undergo a Santander Universities Internship at Business Fives. This year there were around 1,500 Santander Universities internships in the UK. The 84 University partners had to nominate one student for the award, from this, 15 were shortlisted to attend the awards night last week in London. As a result of her win, Caroline will now receive a year’s mentorship with Santander Universities UK and will be awarded a £500 voucher for a choice of different locations.

Santander’s funding goes towards a range of scholarships, funding and entrepreneurship support alongside supporting the University’s widening participation commitment. Business Fives has since offered Caroline a full term contract within the company, and looks forward to continuing their relationship with the bank to help students gain valuable experience.