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Tata Consumer Products came for its leadership program (ELP) during the early days of campus placements. Obviously when you hear the name Tata the words enthusiasm, passion, ethics come automatically. The selection process was simple. It consisted of an initial CV shortlist, followed by a GD round and then a PI. GD's topic was fairly generic involving an ethical conundrum. From every GD panel (group of 8) one person was selected for PI. The results were declared shortly after. I remember it was 9:30 pm to be exact and here's the most unique part. The TA team themselves called us on team call and congratulated us at that very moment. I know of only maybe a handful of organizations that come on calls to congratulate the selected candidates after a whole day of GD, PI, etc and that's what differentiates this organization. That 10min call was the 1st feeling of relief, accomplishment, peace I had felt since the day I joined b-school and it was an ecstatic moment.
In all honesty, an online internship felt weird initially, but the 1st interaction with my mentors put my mind at ease. They were super supportive and despite their busy schedules, they did manage to find time to just enquire about my progress or challenges faced if any. The team members were also very supportive. The best way to leave the best impression is to be a part of their day-to-day work. Basically, that would involve getting to know how things work and try to get involved in those even if it is not a part of my project description. The objective shall always be to learn as much as I can from every person I can connect within a short period of time.
The preparation for summer placements starts from the day you join a b-school. The very first step is to create a perfect CV. By perfect CV I mean one which showcases your achievements, abilities in tandem with the domain in which you want to apply for internship. Apart from that I also made sure that I was prepared with basic HR questions like why HR, tell me about yourself, strengths, weakness etc. College seniors help a lot in this part of the preparation. They also have an idea on how much technical stuff in your domain would be asked during interview and what are some major points in your CV that might attract attention. Lastly I also had a group of friends who practiced online GD together. That was an entirely new experience-time lag, varying loudness as per headphones etc. So those mock GD s helped a lot. And finally I made sure that I know about the company as much as I can- their CSR activities, mission,vision,new iinitiatives etc. Knowing. these generally gives an edge during PI.
The only thing that is really necessary to excel during an internship is great interpersonal and communication skills and a tenacity to learn. Apart from that, a complete command over Microsoft office- Excel, PowerPoint, Word etc is also required. You should know how to analyse and represent data in a crisp yet effective manner because many times you will be addressing senior leadership and they would not have the bandwidth to listen to the whole story always. A knowledge about research methodology, statistics also helps a lot in this too.
The common problem in the case of an online internship is the initial connection with mentors and team members. During the initial days, it was difficult, though my mentors were very supportive in work from home scenarios, it is difficult to create such a rapport. The only way out is to keep trying, and once you take initiative on your own, connect with other stakeholders, take on various projects and become an integral part of the team, things fall into place. I needed the 1st one or two weeks for this. The other problem I faced was adapting to changing scenarios. Sometimes the allotted project takes a back seat and a new project comes up. Adaptability becomes a key skill at that time. As long as I was willing to learn no matter what the project I had a fun experience. Also in online mode, it gets difficult to understand the ground level scenario and the only way out is to connect with as many people as you can and learn from their experiences. But the onboarding team was super helpful and helped in taking care of any challenge that I faced once I reached out to them.
I was lucky to have an extremely supportive manager who appreciated every single effort I made. However, I shall always remember the day when a part of my project was approved and was ready to be implemented. My manager and I had spent countless hours in perfecting the reports etc, each and every step was understood from multiple stakeholders and was compiled together. It was a great experience and also brought about a load of compliments from my manager.
The final presentation was basically a representation of all the works that I had done during the internship, my analysis of the problem statement, my recommendations on the same, and my learnings. There were no such tough questions asked to be exact. Most questions revolved around the implementation of recommendations given. I had to be perfectly clear as to why I recommended the said point, what will be its impact, how feasible they were, and which recommendations can be implemented.
The best way to go about an internship is to keep an open mind and grasp as much as you can over the 2month period. Connecting with as many people as possible and getting a pulse of the organization is great way to go about any project. Also, a thorough knowledge of excel, PowerPoint and a great connection with peers and seniors helps a lot during internships.