My summer internship placement, although not at the most glamorous of organisations, but it was at one of the most up and coming start-ups in the country, Interface. Having SBI in their client list, they thought to expand to other Avenues apart from financial institutions, hence hiring a new digital marketing team, which I was a part of as an intern.
The Summer internship process in its totality was a process unlike my graduation placement processes. It was more rigorous, demanded more from us and kept us on our toes. The competition to get placed at the best company, with the best role, the most suitable location and the CHERRY, the highest stipend, was what everyone wanted. I was part of the same rat race chasing the same string of cheese.
As the days passed and another student got placed, the uncertainty comes knocking at the door making you feel anxious and nervous. But then, my turn did come and it was me who got placed at Interface. A Bangalore based start-up that had moved their operations from Silicon Valley to Bangalore.
Interface primarily hired me as a research intern. But on the first day of our internship I was told that I will a Digital Marketing Intern which really uplifted my mood as that is some field that I really wanted to work in. However, my role, even as a digital marketing intern was at most cases to do research for the Digital Marketing team. I was even handed off to other departments such as strategy and finances where my researching skills could be made of use.
The work revolved involved around researching a lot about the industry in which the company was involved i.e. Chatbots or Intelligent Virtual Assistants, which is a fancy name for chatbots. In simple terms, Interface made softwares like Alexa or Siri for Businesses to use for their website and Platforms. Being in the digital marketing team exposed me to what I could be doing in my future workplace but having very little impact in terms of influence on the decision making. The work culture was pretty easy going, being a start-up and I was welcomed from day one and never treated like someone who was there for just two months. This showed how much they valued their employees, whether full-time or interns.
I was directly working under the Digital Marketing Head, Swapnil Bhagwat, who also joined the company the same time as us. However, we also reported directly to the Marketing Head, Manjunath GN. Both were very cordial and gave us time to settle in to the company’s environment and were always there to guide us when needed. They were never short of praise when my work was exemplary and even rounded up the whole office at the last day of my internship to thank me for my services to the company and offered any sort of help, if needed at any point of time in my career.