With the insurance industry bringing newer opportunities for the world, Capgemini's insurance arm has proved its mettle in providing cutting-edge technologies. My internship experience and insights were something that I will cherish for a lifetime and I promise, this read will be worth your time.

Cracking the Interview:

So, I was shortlisted based on my GD performance and my interview happened in 2 rounds. My first PI was technical in nature where the panelists (3 of them) wanted to understand my thought process towards the insurance and technology domain. Well, don't stress out too much, they know whether you have such a background or not. They are more interested in knowing how you logically connect your idea. You don't need to be an insurance guru. My second PI was more towards understanding my personality and mindset. So, this went like a breeze. Out of the 6 interns selected for the insurance practice, I was the only one from the marketing domain.

My Chrysalis Journey:

It started with an online onboarding call, with all the interns across India connected using video apps. In the beginning, I was quite muddled as to how things would occur in an online scenario, will I be able to make it a worthy experience. I was given two projects to work on. The first one was on product development, which was to create an end-to-end application for risk surveyors in the commercial insurance setup including the branding and feasibility of the solution. The second project was to write a whitepaper on cybersecurity solutions which was supposed to be published on the Capgemini website. The industry as well as the project deliverables were quite new to me in terms of my concept clarity. My mentor was very supportive and explained to me the deliverables extremely well. Due to the online scenario, there was less chance of creating an impression that would have been easier if it would have been an in-office internship. Changing times require innovative solutions. I started adapting to the online environment, connecting through audio/video calling apps to my mentor and other relevant partners in the company.

Key Learnings:

My takeaways from the internship were to adapt to the changing times. Technology has taken a new form altogether with all the new AI/ML innovations, the working dynamics will change soon. Only consistent hardwork everyday will yield dividends, working in bits and pieces doesn't make sense (although you can take a day off or two just to relax a bit). And numerous other learnings in terms of personality development, refined thought process, and a new perspective towards the world.

The way forward for readers:

Most of the concepts and frameworks which I learned back in my first-year MBA, it wasn’t directly helpful. But, I was able to use some marketing and branding techniques which I acquired from other industry use cases to my internship domain. In this era of disruption, my strong suggestion to you is to keep an eye on all industry happenings, you never know what might come handy to your project. You can take cues and tweak ideas to make your original idea.

Keep learning, you guys are awesome !

Shahzeb Akhtar

My Internship Experience At Capgemini (Chrysalis SIP 2020) | Shahzeb Akhtar