In this article, Sambuddha Maitra, a student of DMS IIT Dhanbad who interned at Urban Company in the Operations and Supply Chain domain talks about his summer internship experience. Find out about how he prepared for the summer placements, his onboarding process, his experiences & what his learnings are during this internship.
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Hi, Tell us about how you got selected for this internship? Take us through the moment you realized you had got the internship.
I received a LinkedIn job update about an internship opportunity in Operations and Supply Chain in Kolkata (my home location). So I applied using LinkedIn. A few hours later I was contacted by the UC hiring team and my Hiring Manager. They asked me if I was comfortable with appearing for an interview within the hour to which I gave a positive response. I had my interview which was a very unique experience as it was very chilled out. The interviewer was more interested in my interests rather than on my grades or experience. We discussed more about DC Comics and my passion for theater and social work. Soon, after 2 successive rounds on the same day, I was informed that results will be declared within the next 24 hours. And the next morning I got the congratulatory email and the offer letter. So, well, within 24 hours of my application, I had received the opportunity to work with India's fastest growing start-up!
On joining the company as an intern, how has your onboarding experience been like?
The onboarding experience was great. Sessions on introductions, ice-breakers, finances, general Q&A, IT set-up were held back to back. The people hosting and moderating the sessions were frank and chilled out and tried to introduce us more towards the "bro" culture of the company.
How has your interaction with the team members and colleagues been like? How will you make sure to leave the best impression on your supervisors by the end of the internship?
My Hiring Manager cum Mentor is a very amicable person. We are of the same age group and get along pretty well. Our interactions each time usually tend to be of more than an hour at least. As both of us are working remotely, we meet at least 3 times every day on Zoom/Meets to discuss planning, execution, strategies and new hurdles that have or may come up. Currently I'm working in a team of 4. All others are collaborative and very helpful. When I first joined, all 3 others in my team sat me down for 2 days dedicatedly to drill everything into me. Having had past experience in e-commerce, I picked up the work fairly easily which impressed my team and other teams as well. On my part, I have helped the organisation to automate all dashboards in the past few months with query systems. Also I have helped to launch 2 new service-lines with 542 on-ground service providers in Kolkata which also led me to earn praises from senior management including the AVP of the service-line. Hence I think I already have a good impression on my supervisors and will be leaving the organisation having made a positive impact.
Tell us in brief, about the project you are currently working on and how is this project going to help the company?
I cannot exactly share the details of my current project due to confidentiality issues. However, I can say that I have helped in automating dashboarding with query systems over G-Suite. I have also helped to launch 2 entirely new service lines in my category in Kolkata which required onboarding, training, and micromanaging 542 newly hired service providers end to end. A typical day at my life with UC includes updating shift data, shift-planning, working to meet shift-quarter plans, ensuring demand vs supply, micromanaging service providers, helping them out in each issue and raising trouble tickets with designated teams and collaborating with them for any kind of resolution. Also a typical day includes around 3-4 sessions on quality analysis, deep dive on customer sentiment and quality of service, and strategising mode of actions accordingly. Usually at EOD, I take retraining webinar sessions with low-performing service providers with subsequent tests. And then we wrap up with shift reports and ticket reports with an overview of an action-plan for D+1, based on demand forecasts and past-statistics.
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TIMELINE, PROCESS AND RULES
- You don't need to register on InsideIIM.com or on the Kampus App to take part in Summer Saga Season 8. Simply share your experiences in the Digital Diary. To maintain standardisation, every Digital Diary will have a few questions that you'll need to answer.
- Access all the Digital Diaries forms from here: Digital Diary 1 | Digital Diary 2 | Digital Diary 3 | Digital Diary 4 | Digital Diary 5
- Your overall submission will be evaluated on the following parameters:
-Completeness: This depends on the number of Digital Diaries you have filled.
-Value Addition: This depends on how in-depth your answers have been. The score for this parameter will be given by our Judges.
-Reach: This depends on how many unique people have read your internship experience once we publish the article. We maintain fair play, we will publish all the articles on the same day, so that you can also share the same in your network.
- There is also a title called, ‘Campus With The Most Interesting Interns’ that will be awarded to (a) the campus that submits the maximum number of entries and (b) the campus that submits the best quality entries (based on the score given by our judges). The minimum entries from campus to be considered for this title is 10. So, if you want your campus to win the title then make sure your classmates and other students from your b school share their experiences in this year's Summer Saga Competition.
This competition is broadly divided into four categories. Refer to the table below to know more about prizes in each category.
Prize Money
|
Category
|
|
Banking and Finance
|
Sales, Marketing and General Management
|
Operations
|
HR, Consulting and Others
|
| 1st Prize |
₹ 10,000 |
₹ 10,000 |
₹ 10,000 |
₹ 10,000 |
| Runner Up |
₹ 5,000 |
₹ 5,000 |
₹ 5,000 |
₹ 5,000 |
The 1st Prize winner will also get a one-hour 1-on-1 career guidance session with an industry stalwart, from our panel of mentors in Kounsel.
ABOUT THE JUDGES
Every year, we have Campus Managers from some of the top companies (such as Reliance, HSBC, Flipkart, ABG, HUL, TAS, etc) judging the annual Summer Saga competition. We will release the details of the judges of Summer Saga Season 8 soon!
Check out the previous year's
winners!
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Maybe this will help you reflect and recall these two months as well (which can come in handy when appearing for interviews in the future). InsideIIM is the perfect platform to chronicle your experiences, your highs, your lows and everything in between.
So guys, what are you waiting for? Start writing! You have a voice. You have the experience. Make the best of it!