“In The Middle Of Every Difficulty Lies An Opportunity”- Albert Einstein
In the summer internship placement season of TAPMI in the first year of my MBA course, I got offered an internship in one of the biggest consultancy firms present worldwide, Deloitte. I was happy and excited. I didn’t waste a minute before checking out the location of the offices. I hoped to be located in Bangalore. I started dreaming about all the meet-ups I would have and the people I will meet in the office. I had previously worked in Infosys and used to love those canteen debates I had with my colleagues. I was looking forward to them too.
Even before giving CAT, I researched a lot about the type of company I wanted to work in if I get into an MBA course. The consultancy sector made the best fit. I like digging deep into the problems and case studies were my favorite part of the MBA experience. When Deloitte came into the campus for recruitment, I made up three strategies in my mind. First was knowing thoroughly everything in my CV especially about my past work experience. Secondly, I made my mind up to be a calm negotiator in the case discussions. Consultancy companies don’t look for aggressive people, they look for accommodating people. Thirdly, smile. Smiling will always make you look confident and make the other person sitting in front of you comfortable. These three strategies helped me in cracking the Interview.
It was around December that I got my location. Guess what? It was Bangalore. I contacted my cousins, friends, relatives residing there. I guess I even started separating the clothes I am going to take to Bangalore from those I am going to send back home. By January, COVID was there in other parts of the world, but it still felt like a long shot for India. Then came March. Internships of my friends in the college started getting deferred and cancelled. By the end of March, I was hoping for a deferred but still a Bangalore joining. I started getting a few survey emails about my preferences and home location from the company. I was a bit relieved by the thought that they hadn’t ruled us out. By the 1st week of April, I was contacted for a work from home internship till things get normalized. That continued and we ended up having a two-month-long work from home (WFH) internship.
I was given a tech-based research topic where Deloitte looks for an opportunity. I was to research the topic and present it in front of a senior panel. I am a person who is optimistic about tech and it helped me navigate through pages of google to search for the data I needed. I followed a strategy here too. Any person who will look through a presentation will also look for a story. To build a story you need the correct data. So, I looked for data first. I collected all the data related to the topic in a place and formed my story with the help of these connecting data points. I did a lot of courses on various research skills and data presentation skills to help me with it. There were allocated guides and mentors to help us, Deloitte interns through the whole process. I will forever remember the research and report presentation skills I learned through this internship. Maybe the learnings were a bit different than I would have in case it was not a WFH, but it will always be valuable to me.
Now, I will explain below the good and the bad parts of the experiences I had in these two months.
In the office, I could otherwise get access to only a few people in leadership positions present in the same office as mine. Could I get a 1-2-hour one-to-one discussion time with the MDs and senior managers? No. Could I end up knowing so many cross-located senior executives, and made my mark? No. I could reach out to anyone at any time with just a mail. That is the leverage that the WFH internship gave me. The flexibility of reaching out to anyone removes the barrier of hierarchy and if they end up liking you, you are set for life. I could never have imagined otherwise having the kind of discussions I ended up having with these people. I tried to make the best out of the opportunity I had.
Now, the bad part. You don’t have a canteen or a desk or a face time other than the virtual video calls. You don’t get the good parts of having a peer group (Other than the knowledge share). You can’t sit with your friends you make during internship and gossip about others. Also, you cannot make alums pay for your coffee. Just kidding. I missed all of these and more. Probably in the coming years many, like us, will miss all of these. We might get used to this. We might not.
Would I choose an internship from home over an office internship? I would not. Sometimes certain situations are not in our hands. We should be adaptive and make the most of what we get. Though I did whatever I could in this situation, I would forever crave the experience of two months that I lost due to COVID.
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