So, this time of the year most of the 1st year MBA students have completed their internship from various companies offering wide variety of profiles. The following is a conversation between two such friends who have just completed their internship.
One of them is Rohith Chanda who has completed his summer internship from Johnson and Johnson and other is Rahul Sharma who has also completed his internship from a reputed organisation.
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Rahul : Hey Rohith, What’s up? I forgot where you interned at this summer.
Rohith : J&J. Naam tho suna hi hoga. :p
Rahul : Yeah man, obviously. How was it? Tell me in detail. How was your experience from when they came to campus for interviews?
Rohith : Well okay. It is a very good trip down the memory lane and it feels good to share. So the interview happened on one fine day and I had just come back from the interview. The result followed me right back to the auditorium. “Rohith has been offered an internship at Johnson & Johnson”, the announcement came. I honestly did not listen to what was said. People started cheering and it was my friend who was sitting next to me, repeated those golden words till it sank in.
Rahul : Woah, nice bro. That sounds dramatic.
Rohith : It sure does. When rest of the world was still asleep I got this news. I called my parents right away and shared it. It was a wonderful feeling to grab the opportunity for an internship at a company which is one of my top choices. Then it was all praises from my seniors too.
Rahul : That is amazing. So, was the transition to the company smooth?
Rohith : More than smooth. Can you think of any company that develops an onboarding app for the interns so that they find it quite convenient?
Rahul : Nothing strikes me at the moment. At least not my company. So, what about the app?
Rohith : It was basically the onboarding app which had quite much information about the company, the answers to various FAQs and also the schedule for an initial couple of days and much more is available. It was a very good idea and more importantly a helpful one for us.
Rahul : How was your actual induction? Was it a one-day affair?
Rohith : Unlike many companies, it was not just a one-day affair. Not that I’m boasting about my company but the HR planned it really well. We had sessions from senior leaders explaining the various sectors J&J does business in and also on what ‘
CREDO’ means to the company. We had a
CSR activity planned. Caring for the world one person at a time is what J&J believes in. Then the visit to the Mulund plant which I enjoyed a lot. Oh! I almost forgot we had a
treasure hunt to know more about the office and its various locations.
All these happened over a course of 4 days and the transition was smooth.
Rahul : What is “CREDO”?
Rohith : Ohh yeah, Credo is a four-paragraph document written by Robert Wood Johnson, the founder, back in 1970’s. It was quite ahead of its time and talks about the responsibilities of the company towards its customers, employees, stakeholders. Will tell you in detail about it some other time. Hours can be spent on that.
Rahul : Cool, you could tell me about it later. So, did you start your project right away? How was that?
Rohith : One good thing was that I got to sit with my team which I feel is important for any intern. I was part of the CLS team which was cross sectorial and my project required me to interact with
various stakeholders and half the time was spent on distributors only who were also our customers. I got to visit them in person, also visited the warehouse, the CFA and had a very good interaction throughout. Finally, I also had to interact with various 3
rd party vendors as well.
Rahul : That’s really something. Getting quite a bit of exposure in a 2-month internship. Not everyone gets to do that I guess, right?
Rohith : Yes, I guess I was lucky to get into such a project. And it was not just about the project all the time. There were many subtle things at J&J which I loved. We had
yoga minutes once every week, and there were
safety instructions written on all the stairs, food quality and testing
reports in the cafeteria and many more such things which were small yet significant.
Rahul : Nice man, maybe I could suggest these things at my office as well. How else were you engaged?
Rohith : Another very good initiative was the “
Chat with Leaders” where we got to interact with the HR head, India and also the MDs of the Medical and Pharma sectors of India. They shared their experiences and advised us on various things. They are the kind of people whom we look up to. The three sessions were really amazing. I’m sure there are very few companies, if at all, who would engage interns in such a way.
Rahul : That sounds like a very good initiative. So was that the end to the internship?
Rohith : Dude,
Final Review was the concluding part. It went well and we had a
graduation dinner too. In other words, Parttyyy!!! It felt sad when everyone was leaving and being the psenti person that I am it took me around 3 days to get back to normal. The 2 months were quite memorable. So many good memories to cherish and more importantly made some amazing friends.
Rahul : Awesome man. I shall tell you my story some other time. Getting late for the Wonder Woman movie.
Rohith : Sure man. We shall catch up again real soon. Wonder Woman is amazing. I fell in love with her. May the force be with you. Live long and Prosper. God Speed.