I Asked For A Mentor And Was Told To Figure It Out Myself. Here’s What Happened Next.
Subhadip Mandal | TISS Mumbai (HRM & LR 2025–27) | HR Intern, Kotak Mahindra Bank
Before my summer internship began, my LinkedIn feed was flooded with stories of lavish corporate inductions. My friends heading to top FMCG firms were walking into grand welcome sessions, structured mentorship programs, and carefully curated orientation weeks.
Naturally, I expected something similar when I walked into Kotak Mahindra Bank for my HR internship. I expected a charter. I expected a detailed roadmap. Most of all, I expected a mentor to hold my hand and show me how a massive banking ecosystem functioned.
What I got was a very different reality check.
There was no grand induction. There was no warm welcome. My internship coincided with the bank’s crucial appraisal cycle, meaning my manager was incredibly pressed for time.
When I asked if I would be assigned a buddy or a mentor, something I had heard was standard practice from my seniors, the response I received was blunt:
"Interns don't get mentors. The organisation doesn't have that much bandwidth. Figure out your way yourself. People are approachable, but you need to be on your own feet."
I was handed a problem statement in a massive, highly regulated organisation and left to figure it out.
It was a shock. But looking back, that initial jolt was exactly what I needed to learn how corporate India actually works.
No Charter? Build Your Own Roadmap
I could have spent my time waiting for instructions. Instead, I realised that being a fresher gave me an advantage: I had the ambition to learn, and I wasn't afraid to ask for help outside the formal channels.
I reached out to an intern from a different campus who had worked in the same team the previous summer. I spoke to TISS alumni currently working in banking. I studied their ways of working and slowly started piecing together my own roadmap.
Within a few weeks, I had met with multiple stakeholders, documented their perspectives on my problem statement, added my own thought process, and presented a preliminary plan to my manager.
That’s when the project truly began. My manager steered my work in a completely different direction. Instead of desk research, I was suddenly doing field visits with HR Relationship Managers (HRRMs), gathering ground-level information about the day-to-day problems faced by branch staff.
I started running telephonic surveys. I analysed the data. I was ready for my mid-term review.
But to my surprise, the formal mid-review never happened. The unstructured nature of the stint continued.
The 30-Slide Screw-Up
If the lack of a mentor was my first big lesson, my presentation deck was the second.
As the final weeks approached, I poured everything I had done all the field visits, the data analysis, the stakeholder conversations into a massive 30-to-40-slide presentation. I thought I was proving how hard I had worked. I thought leadership would want to see every detail of my methodology.
I was wrong.
When my manager finally carved out some time to review my work in the final week, he discarded a huge chunk of it. He set entirely new guidelines and told me to condense my findings into just three or four slides.
It was a scramble. I stretched way beyond my capacity in those final days, frantically running impromptu dry-runs with stakeholders, trying to distil two months of intense fieldwork into a few bullet points.=
Ultimately, the recommendation framework and the final deck settled at around 10 slides, still more than the CHRO usually reviewed, but it was the best we could do.
I learned a harsh but valuable lesson: leadership doesn't have the time to look at your spreadsheets or admire how much effort you put in. They just need the insights, and they need them fast.
The Final Room
My final review wasn't a quiet chat with my manager. I found myself presenting to a group of at least ten senior leaders, including the CHRO, the Management Committee, my manager, and the Campus Team.
It was a rollercoaster. It went from average to good. I got grilled on several aspects of my recommendations. I defended some well. In other moments, I completely blanked.
But at the end of it, my manager was happy with the outcome. And as the review wrapped up, the CHRO patted me on the shoulder and said, "Good work."
That simple acknowledgement made the chaos of the previous two months entirely worth it.
What I Wish I Knew Before Day 1
If I could go back and tell myself one thing before starting, it would be this:
Not every company treats you the same, and your experience is largely shaped by your manager and your own initiative.
I went in expecting a structured, well-documented experience, similar to the fieldwork we do at TISS. I didn't account for the fact that a regulated industry like banking operates differently, or that a sudden surge in intern intake (three times the previous year) would mean less preparedness from the organisation.
I'd rate my summer internship a 7 out of 10.
I didn't get the structured corporate fairytale. Instead, I learned the hard way how to navigate through corporate India. I learned to build my own network, to ask the right questions, and to pivot when my 30-slide deck gets thrown out the window.
And honestly? For someone just starting their career, that’s a far more valuable lesson than a grand induction.