Being a freshman in college isn’t the most ideal thing, especially when it comes to summer internship placements.
Constant nagging went on inside my head when I didn’t get a shortlist in the first two companies on campus. The pressure was building, and my luck wasn’t getting any better with a few GD round disqualifications. Huff! My hopes were running low, and then TATA Steel came on campus. One perk of being a core engineer - TATA Steel shortlists you. Seeing my name appear in the list of one of my dream companies was just the beginning.
We had 2 days to prepare before the company came for the selection process. I had one thing on my mind -
“I have to get in,” and thus my preparation started. I spoke to a few seniors who had interned with TATA Steel the previous year; they advised me to prepare current affairs and abstract topics for the GD round, to go through some of the profile specific MBA topics. But the most important thing, they said, was to be honest and sincere in my answers.
The night before the interview, I surfed their website, read about the recent trends in the Steel Industry, and had a look at my engineering major project. Finally, with a positive feeling, I retired early to bed. It was the 150
th anniversary of the TATA group - another milestone for the family. Three officials had come to conduct the interview process.
First, we were given a presentation about the company, their expectations from us and what we can expect from the company. Each one of them was friendly and incredibly proud of being associated with TATA. After the presentation, we were divided into groups for our GD rounds. I was in the 1
st group, and we received a generic topic but with a slight twist. We were eight people in the group and, like always, there was one person who didn’t have a pause button. After trying and giving up twice, I realized that the best defence was to have a good offence, and I started to speak and didn’t stop until she gave up. Once she did, I calmly presented my point and passed the lead to others. One tip - TATA is a company of its people, so respecting one another is what they look for first. Well, I spoke twice in the GD and that was it. The wait for the results was extremely long, and when they called out my name, pheww! I got a sudden twitch in my stomach; I was going to my 1
st interview in the summer placements process.
I was extremely nervous and to top it, I was the 1
st interviewee. We had a few printouts to collect before the interview and being the 1
st candidate on the list, I had to sprint. Huff! Just as I reached back at the hall grabbing those printouts, they were ready for me! I took one deep breath, wiped the sweat off my forehead and stepped in.
Getting selected was one big milestone but the journey that lay ahead was even bigger. After patiently waiting for 8 whole months, my journey for the 8 whole weeks started.
“Savdhan Loco Aa Rahi Hai” my welcome sound at TATA Steel, Jamshedpur. The first and most important lesson of my internship was on “How to enter the gates of TATA Steel”. Incessant calls to my mentor and HR manager were taken up very politely, as they once had faced the same issue.
Mine was the coolest of all the departments. The officers in my department were strong believers and followers of “All work and No play makes Ankita a dull kid”! So in the eight weeks that I was over there, we had two parties and one cricket match. Now, my project was heavily dependent on fieldwork and interaction with employees at various aisles. I had to look at the outbound logistics circuit of TSJ and give my ideas on how to reduce the demurrage being paid to Indian Railways without hampering operational efficiency. It was an interesting project and I had to go on numerous Loco rides, conducting time-motion studies and looking at the loopholes in the existing system.
There were two other interns in my department; we had an amazing time at lunch breaks, discussing college life and sharing stories of each other. From morning 8:30 to evening 7, we were inside TSJ but the rest of the day we took to experience Jamshedpur. The city is quiet, not so crowded, and gave me a feel of my hometown. It was really hot there but whom to blame; after all it was our summer internship. There were some amazing food joints and the lone but beautiful PGP mall; a pleasant relief on the weekends.
We were staying at XLRI and here, I would like to compliment the mess food at XL! Seriously, that sumptuous breakfast at XLRI mess really made our day. Though I did miss the beautiful windy weather of Bhubaneswar, XLRI quite sufficiently substituted it.
Well, up and down, from asking doubts to giving views, the 8 weeks passed by in no time and I was bidding farewell to TATA Steel Jamshedpur. TATA Steel taught me that being a good person comes before being a successful one, and with this in mind, I am ready to face another exciting year at XIMB.
My Mentor
He was really passionate about his work. It took him just 30 minutes and a few rough diagrams to explain what my project was. Being one of the heads in our department, he was one of the busiest people in the department yet he was also the most approachable. He never made me feel like an intern and gave me as much importance as he gave to the other officials. He was pro-active in helping me out with my project and even asked one of the area specialists to guide me on the topic.
From getting contacts to arranging meetings he helped me out in every possible way, I just had to ask.