If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you - Les Brown
It was last year in the early summer when I was going through my institute’s website to know about organizations which come for internship and the profiles, role, work culture they offer. One organization caught my eyes. It was RBI. I was about to join my institution and did not know A B C D of internships, which is, in fact, the first exposure for any B school grad to a corporate life. I browsed through the RBI website to know more about the internship process. I quickly scanned through details like eligibility, duration, place of the intern, selection, vacancy. My eyes were on stalks as the vacancies were very few moreover, RBI selects interns based on all India competition. Nonetheless, I was getting ready to be a part of such finest institution.
Selection Process and Preparation Strategy –
“You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction” – Bhagavad Gita
RBI came out with an internship notification and like my fellow classmates, I applied for it. RBI selects students from the top B-Schools across India based on their resume who are then called for a personal interview. Luckily I made it to the interview process in the Mumbai office in the month of January and a few weeks later a mail pops up in my phone. I opened it up. Hurray. I got through and I was saturated with happiness.
While I awaited my interview call I had assumed that I had a fair chance of getting through, all for my graduation score!! Hence I started prepping for it. I started interacting with seniors to get insights into their internship experiences, brushing up various concepts and terminology, related to BFSI sector. One thing which made me sail through the interview was reading inside out about RBI. I got my hands on every other financial report which became my Bible. Mock interview with my faculties was also helpful.
Backpack to Mumbai –
Since it was my first time in Mumbai I was quite overwhelmed by the city of dreams. Having a day in hand, I went out to soak in some fresh air at Marine drive only to find two types of sea there - the Arabian sea and the sea of people. Nevertheless, I eventually learned to make peace with the spilling crowd and the sultry weather of Mumbai.
Internship DAYS –
On the first day, I along with a bunch of students from other colleges reported to the CGM in charge of the Department of Currency Management as I was allocated to this department. I was briefed about the department’s functions and their expectations of me. Since I wanted to work on the supply-chain management of currency, cost-efficiency of currency notes production, understanding the mismatch between the demand and supply of currency in circulation. I was allocated to the RMMT(Resource Management and Movement of Treasury) division. I then interacted with my mentor GM who was the head of RMMT division. After discussion with my mentor, I fixed my project title as “Demand Supply analysis of currency in circulation”.The most important step is to fine tune the basics before going deeper into the project. I spent my initial 2 weeks to understand the nuances and various terminologies, for which I took help of my mentor, referred to books in the library, annual reports of RBI and documents were given to me by the department. Once I was all updated with my basics I started working on my project. I used several sources, made a blueprint and kept on working towards it. The best thing I liked was all employees were really helpful, humble, down to earth kind at heart and full of enthusiasm.
For the project, I used various graphs, charts, statistical tools to understand trend analysis of currency in circulation over the last five years, the mismatch between indent and supply and cost efficiency in currency circulation.
Learnings from the internship –
The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The willingness to learn is a choice - Brian Herbert
It is said that internship is the first step and prepares an individual for facing the corporate world. I made sure that these coming months will be the best part of my life in terms of the knowledge I would gain and the guidance from the mentor. Most importantly my mentor was quite supportive. All though there were many challenges like getting adequate resources for the project. But luckily I got access to the central library which was a source of knowledge. An internship is incomplete without any practical exposure. I had an opportunity to visit two of the currency chests of SBI and ICICI bank.
Currency chests are basically branches of selected banks authorized by the RBI to stock currency notes and coins. The responsibility for managing the currency is vested in the RBI. The central bank advises the Centre on the number of notes to be printed, the currency denominations, security features and so on. The number of notes that need to be printed is determined using a statistical model that takes the pace of economic growth, the rate of inflation and the replacement rate of soiled notes.
The food at RBI was amazing. Sometimes it so used to happen that I used to wait for Monday after a long weekend for delicious lunch provided by RBI. I also visited the museum which was a storehouse of the history of coins and notes of our country.
I believe that RBI is a great institution to work where every employee is dedicated and involved in his work with full enthusiasm and dedication. I definitely look forward to joining this great institution.