We have with us Ms Vishakha Sharma from MDI Gurgaon. She is an alumnus of Indira Gandhi Technical University. She is a music enthusiast. She is currently one of the lead singers of Mandolins, the music club of MDI Gurgaon.
Vishakha not only bagged the internship with Tata Steel but also displayed an impressive stellar performance during her internship, and bagged the PPO from Tata Steel. Let's begin our conversation.
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Tell us in brief about how you prepared for summer placement interviews?
I interacted with a lot of people from the senior batch for guidance regarding my preparation. There were three major areas in which my seniors asked me to prepare. The selection process for most companies included group discussions followed by personal interview. The topic for group discussions mostly revolved around current affairs so I developed a habit of reading newspapers regularly. I read 2-3 national dailies to gather perspective about the important recent issues. The other important area of my preparation was subject knowledge. I read the compendium shared by the marketing club of MDI Gurgaon and my marketing text books religiously to grab a clear understanding of the fundamental marketing concepts. The third important area of my preparation was my preparation for behavioural questions. My seniors helped in preparing for those. I went into introspection to understand my life better and it helped me a great deal in preparing for my summer placements.
What was the summer internship selection process like for Tata Steel?
There was a CV based shortlist followed by a group discussion. The students selected from group discussion finally had to appear for a round of personal interview which was mostly around the technical questions and fundamentals with a few behavioural questions towards the end.
What are the reasons you think you cracked the interview?
I think the reasons which contributed to my selection were a good performance in the group discussion wherein I had made 3 entries, I made new points in the first two entries and concluded the group discussion in the third entry. Moreover, I feel Tata Steel focuses a lot on culture fit of the candidate. I think I answered all the behavioural questions quite satisfactorily and the interview concluded on an optimistic note which may have contributed to my selection.
Tell us about your day to day work as an intern
As my project was heavily dependent on data, most of my day during internship was spent on research, talking to people – both internal employees and external partners to get relevant information and support for execution of my project. I paid a lot of emphasis on analysing the data and drawing relevant inferences from them because I strongly believe in the fact that while data collection is important, what is more important is how you process the available data to derive valuable insights for the organisation. In most cases the review of summer project was done by the CXOs of Tata Steel and it wouldn’t make sense if you were to overload them with data instead what they expected from an intern was to have crisp and precise presentation with clear insights which could add value to the organisation. So I used to spend quite a considerable amount of time during the day in analysing whatever data I had collected and I kept checking with my project mentor and guide if the inferences I drew were relevant and important for the organisation or not.
What did you do right to achieve the PPO?
The answer to this question is quite simple. Any intern irrespective of his or her function and organisation that he or she is interning for needs to understand that all the related stakeholders will have a say in whether or not an intern should be awarded a PPO or not. This is something which one must take proper care of when working with any organisation in any capacity not just as an intern. Throughout my project, I made sure that I regularly interacted with not only my project guide and mentor but also all the other stakeholders as well so that they should be aware about my work and it also helped me a great deal in executing the project holistically taking the perspectives from all stakeholders into consideration. Hence, the most important things according to me which needs to be done right to perform well during an internship is the fact that one must involve all the related stakeholders throughout the project.
What are the most cherishable moments of your internship?
Some of the most cherishable moments for me have been the time I spent with other fellow interns from so many other top b-schools of India. It was a very short span of just two months yet we became really good friends during the internship.