Firstly, to all the first year MBA Grads reading this, there’s no perceptible advantage of getting placed before your friends. Life is a marathon, not a 100m, so learn to see what your end goal is rather than short pulses of happiness that we run after in our college life.
I’ll try to keep this as organized and precise as I can cause I share your pain of reading through unnecessary clatter to get to the real objectives.
Details about my internship –
- Company Name: Tata Capital Ltd.
- Location of Internship: Videocon Tower, Jhandewalan, New Delhi
- Project Details: Development of Automation Platforms
- SBU: Construction Equipment Financing
Interview Process –
At Tata Capital, they are interested to know if your character and mindset fits into the Tata ethos. At the time of Internship, the JDs are not finalized so there’s not a specific skillset that they are looking for. You will receive your respective project details only a couple of weeks before joining. So, the interviewer is here to check your attitude and your skills that you will bring to the organization as a whole because there are a myriad of projects.
There were three rounds in my college, the first being a GD, followed by a PI and the Final Round being another GD of the top 10 Finalists. The results were announced after the Final Round. The GD Topics were borderline abstract, covering Bollywood, current affairs and others. Also, at the end of the first round GD, there was a question posed to the entire group and each member took turns to give a solution to the problem. It is smarter to go first in this as in the spur of the moment, most applicants come up with the same generic solution and if someone else has already stated it before you, it’ll be a negative to your scoring. Try to think something out of the box which is practical.
For the interview, make sure you are aware of everything that’s on your resume. Also, they will indirectly give you an opportunity to steer the direction of your interview. So, if you don’t want to get into your Engineering days and your scores but have completed an amazing Internship which you know in-depth, be subtle in directing the conversation towards what you accomplished in that internship and how that helped you learn crucial things about work life. My interview was the last one for the day and one of the shortest ones to take place. There were three main question, what would be your dream JD, what did you do in your internship and what do your parents do? The total interview lasted for about 10 to 15 minutes only.
Internship Experience –
The orientation for all interns happens at their Thane office which is a one-day event, post which each intern flies off to their respective locations across the country. In my batch, Interns were based out off Delhi, Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai. Before joining, they will be asking you about your preference for a city and project domain but it is not a guarantee that these will be followed as there are a number of parameters that they consider.
Coming to the eight weeks of internship, as is common with most Tata companies there’s a certain lethargy in the air as we’ve heard from time to time how Tata’s function like Government offices. But after my work here I have understood the reason for the absurd comparison to a Government office. It’s not just because of the laid-back environment that most people observe on their first day, rather the truth about this comparison lies in how each and every Tata Group company takes care of the customer’s requirements and needs more than most other Private organizations, the same way a government would take care of its people. That I believe is the truth behind this blatant comparison and it’s something you’ll only learn after spending a good amount of quality time in the Tata environment. Each and every work is scrutinized till the team feels that it is for the greater benefit of the people.
My mentor and reviewer were both extremely helpful and took special care in making sure that I had a good overall experience and a plethora of learning in these two months. Just like in every corporate, I was catapulted into the core of Business Requirements Meetings and other day-to-day activities of the employees as this helped me gather a better understanding of what the role will be here.
There will be a presentation of your work at the end of two months where the panel will include your mentor, your reviewer and couple of the people from HR. Be concise about your work and showcase what value your work has added to the organization.