The first challenge that each MBA student has to face is getting an internship with a decent brand and a good role. My college NMIMS,Banglore puts up a good effort with students to give them a real time experience of how the processes go by taking mock Group discussions and interviews. Along with those, I prepared separately for all the recent group discussion topics and went through my CV covering all the things i have done in the past and how they could be related to my interest in operations stream of management.
I sat for 2 companies prior to my placement. It was a huge disappointment initially being rejected by two companies but then all is well that ends well. Then came BIG BASKET in my campus open for marketing and operations. Everyone looked equally excited for the company as it holds a good brand value. There were a lot of opt ins for the company. There was a team of approximately 10 people who had come to recruit from 4 separate departments. As a part of the process, a group discussion and an interview of the selected candidates was taken.
We were divided in a group of 7 each and group discussions started. The topics were mostly abstract. The duration of the discussion was not more than 10 minutes. Out of approximately 100 students a good amount of 50 students were selected for interview round.
My interview was mostly based on my past job experience (its applicability) and basics of operations. The interview was for half an hour approximately.
14 students were finally selected and allotted different departments.
The internship began with first two days were dedicated to the induction of various departments by department heads and visit to Distribution center.
Finally we were sent to our departments. Mine was national expansion. We were thoroughly and very patiently explained our job duties and what needs to be done during the 2 months. It was all together a very different profile for me and hence it was very challenging for me to get into that feel of total desk job as I come from a manufacturing background.
My job required professional excel skills and use of various visual tools for mapping the order locations and help big basket expand nationally in tier 2 cities and saving cost per order.
I was thoroughly helped by all the members in my department. All the data required for my project was given and there was a full freedom to present and discuss our thoughts with anyone and everyone.
Two proper reviews were held and we had to present our work in front of our department. We were given honest reviews by everyone and encouraged to dig deeper in our projects. Overall, it was an experience full of learning. Most importantly, I learnt to make quality, information-rich content structured content. It also strengthened my understanding of core concepts of operations and analytics.
One person that I will always be indebted to is my mentor. The kind of exposure that he gave me during those 2 months still seem impossible. But, he ensured that I look at each and every aspect of how national expansion team works and tried to explain each and every thing very patiently. He encouraged me to discuss my ideas at a micro level to each city head and reach to a conclusion.