My summer internship experience:
I always wanted to make a career in consulting and the day I got selected for a summer internship at K12 Techno Services, it was a dream come true. The news of COVID-19 lockdown had left me worried after I got selected because most of the people were losing jobs but it is commendable how the HR team at K12 took proactive steps in making the whole process smooth and exciting in the current testing times.
Organization and The Selection Process
Specializing in Education consulting, K12 Techno Services Pvt Ltd is a Bangalore based consulting firm that offers a dynamic suite of academic support, services, and solutions to schools in six different cities namely Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Chennai. With Sequoia Capital and Navneet Learning LLP as its investors and extensive evolution of the education sector in the current decade, the organization is highly expected to grow in the near future.
The process to get into internship programs at K12 was quite simple and consisted of two rounds.
- Resume Shortlisting
- Telephonic Interview
As the selection process was in late February, most of my batchmates were already placed, and hence very less students applied for this company. I made sure that my resume makes for a compelling read and gets shortlisted as it was already declared that the company would hire only one candidate. After the first round of resume shortlisting, I, along with two other candidates were selected for the next and final round i.e, Telephonic Interview. Since the company was looking for a candidate with proficiency in IT skills, I got an edge over the other two candidates and finally got selected after the final round.
First Day at the Organization
As informed by the organization, my internship start date was decided to be 16th March which was approximately a week before the lockdown was announced which meant I had to be physically present in the head office at Bangalore. On the first day, the HR team did all the formalities regarding my employability and soon after that I met my mentor for the project who was also my reporting manager. He explained me the project and introduced me to the team with whom I would be working during my summer internship.
About the Project and My Role
K12 developed an ERP system of its own for which financial module development was required. The finance module kept track of all the payments related to fees, concessions, and ledgers of the students enrolled in schools that came under K12. I was selected as a financial advisory consultant and hence my role was to provide solutions and ways to the organization for developing this financial module in the ERP.
Key Responsibilities
As soon as my mentor explained me the project and introduced me to the ERP, I felt very excited and happy to work on this project. This was because I had developed a similar ERP system on my own during my engineering and thus, I was able to understand everything very quickly. My primary responsibility was to formulate the ideas on how to introduce new features in the ERP and ensure smooth communication between the finance and the developers’ team. For the first time in my life, I got benefitted from being fluent in three different languages, i.e, English, Hindi, and Marathi. Before I joined K12, both the finance and IT team were struggling to communicate because the Bangalore team was comfortable with English, Mumbai team with Marathi, and the IT team with Hindi. So. I was the only one who could ensure efficient communication between all these teams. Also, I developed a dashboard using my IT skills which kept track of issues that were resolved/unresolved based on their type and the branch from which it is raised.
Valuable Learnings
During my summer internship, I got to learn about many things that take place in an organization since I had no work experience before MBA. My soft skills were further improved since I had to communicate with around 20-25 different people for ensuring efficient communication. It also improved my hard skills like understanding and working on google sheets and ERP systems. I must say, overall it was an amazing experience to work at K12 and hone my management skills.
#MySummerInternshipStory #Finance #Consulting #SummerPlacements #Coronavirus #IIM #MBA