What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word “Internship”? For some of you, it would be “a learning experience”. For some, “hectic work life after 1 year of college”. And for others, “a gateway to full-time employment in a dream company”. These things used to surround my mind before I joined IIFT. But I would have never thought that the 2-months that I lived in my company, Bajaj Auto, would be one of my most cherishable moments. But before jumping into my internship stint, let me tell you a bit about my placement experience.
The day the oncoming of this company to our campus was announced, not just me but everyone in my college was superbly excited. This was the company that I wanted to start my career with. For cracking the interview, I started reading everything I could get about it, right from their official website to their latest news, LinkedIn posts, Alumni connect and so on. This was the first time that Bajaj Auto was taking in Summer Interns from any b-school. So, we couldn’t have any past Summer interview/internship experience shared with us. The process started at around 1800 hours and there were two rounds of personal interviews. For me, the first round went on for more than 30 minutes with a single person on the panel. I was asked mostly upon my CV, upon Bajaj as a company and its ads and campaigns. It was a stress interview, intended to mainly check the patience level and the mental and emotional stability in tough situations. After cracking the first round, hopefully, I had another round of HR interview. I was mostly asked about my experience at HUL’s Carpe Diem competition, where our team stood as the National Semi-finalist. Ultimately, five of us got placed in Bajaj Auto’s Summer Internship Program, OCTANE’18. I was overwhelmed with joy when the results were announced.
The next few months before internship were all about contemplating about the company, watching Bajaj videos on YouTube and refreshing with the latest news and product updates. Even though I was on the Student Exchange Programme in France for three months, I would constantly research the company. And then came the time which I was so longing for, the Summer Internship Programme.
During the first three days of induction, we were introduced to the company and the Bajaj family. We had dinner with the leadership team from various verticals and were introduced to our mentors. The project work started on the fourth day and we moved on to our respective locations, Pune in my case. The project that was assigned to me was a new initiative that the company took. For this, I was given entire Rural Maharashtra as the target market. The next two months were about going to different village areas, talking to dealers and rural people, organizing activities and many more. Though the project was very challenging in its own way, there were a lot more things that were learned and enjoyed. Having experienced marketing at its root, I have gained knowledge and confidence in this career path. I learned to work and to coordinate with teams of different organizations, understand the roles of different stakeholders and understand the different responsibilities of my role as a Sales Manager in the future.
These learnings were further augmented by the inputs of the excellent team that I worked with. The organization had a very open culture and even the people in the top management were easily approachable. The kind of enthusiasm and dedication that the team showed to the initiative was surreal. Working with such a team greatly improved my morale in achieving higher objectives in the project.
The hard work and commitment that I had lent to this project were highly appreciated by the leadership team as well. This was also signified by a job offer from the company.
The summer internship was a great combination of both fun and learning. Taking the first step into the corporate world, all of us interns had the same feeling of apprehensiveness and ambiguity. The new friendships that were made and the continuous support of the organization were my guiding light in those two months. The internship left with me many memories to cherish.
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