Summer Internship Experience 2021 - Zomato - Deep Parag Padh, IMT Ghaziabad

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Hi, Tell us about how you got selected for this internship? Take us through the moment you realized you had got the internship.

Working with Zomato was always a dream for me. Having been a customer of the app for so long, I always wanted to understand the intricacies of the business from an employee perspective. My selection in the company was off campus and since Zomato only hires based on referrals, I was fortunate that I had previously worked with a key member of the Zomato team. I was ecstatic and grateful that the company showed faith in my abilities and for allowing me the freedom and autonomy to execute my job role with the mindset of an owner. My internship role was in Sales and required me to move to Surat for field work but unfortunately my entire family tested positive for Covid except me so I could only join the Surat branch during the second month of my internship. Zomato was totally supportive of my situation which made me work even harder for the company. I feel blessed to have had this opportunity.

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On joining the company as an intern, how has your onboarding experience been like?

The onboarding process was extremely smooth and hassle free. Ms Ashna Murli and her team gave me the warmest of welcomes and made me feel at home from day 1 itself. The induction process was very informative (Zomato is pronounced Zo-Mah-To) and covered all aspects of the company's operations and departments. Personally, I found the session on company culture the most enriching as it resonated well with the qualities I had already tried to imbibe within me. Understanding the company's philosophy helped me gauge the mindset of the team better and allowed me to fit into my role with an owner's mentality which is an important aspect of the company culture.

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How has your interaction with the team members and colleagues been like? How will you make sure to leave the best impression on your supervisors by the end of the internship?

The company culture at Zomato is the finest I've experienced in my professional career so far. It is the best place to work for any young management student. Since Sales training is something that is very difficult to teach, especially if it's virtual, it was essential for me take initiative and learn as much as I could about the process from my colleagues. My teammates and supervisors were extremely supportive throughout my training period and made time for any and all doubts I might have regarding the execution of my job role. With sales, everyone has their own unique approach and tips on how to make efficient closures and my colleagues were always ready to guide me and provided me with insights that genuinely helped me understand my role a lot more quickly and comprehensively. My supervisor was more like a team member as well and he would regularly check up on me to see if I'm doing fine and need any help. I feel extremely grateful that I was lucky enough to work with such a talented, kind hearted and helpful team.

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Tell us in brief, about the project you are currently working on and how is this project going to help the company? 

My job role is that of a Sales Executive for Zomato's Online Ordering division which includes onboarding restaurant partners and convincing them to provide their menu on Zomato for online ordering and home delivery. It requires me approach prospective partners to understand their business and nature of operations and explaining to them how Zomato's service can help grow their business even further. For Zomato's customers, the work that I do contributes to providing them a variety of restaurants and cuisines to choose from. For restaurant partners, my job role contributes to growing their business further by providing them access to Zomato's huge customer base. And for Zomato, every restaurant I onboard contributes to a hopefully long relationship that those restaurants would have with the company.

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Are You The Best Summer Intern Of The Class Of 2022? Share Your Own Internship Experience.

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Give us an overview of how you prepared for your summer placement season.

The summer placement season is one of the most important aspects of every B-school student's journey. It is the first official interaction that students have with placements and has a lot of prospects to offer if you manage to crack one of your dream companies as it propels your career ambitions to great heights. My preparation for the summer internship mostly revolved around being aware of the industry that I wanted to get into and reading up on the companies that I see myself a good fit for. Once you're in a B-school with fellow batchmates with similar interests as yours, having healthy discussions about business and marketing with your friends forms an important aspect of any preparation as you get more aware of the various perspectives and information that you could've easily missed had you been preparing alone. Most importantly, one must

remember to prepare for enriching one's knowledge. Having a positive spirit and a curious mind goes a long way with any kind of prep.

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Based on your internship experience till now, what are some necessary skill sets one must be prepared with before starting an internship? 

In my opinion, there's no one skill that is more necessary than the other. Every skill has it's own importance and one must be resourceful enough to find good use for any skill one might have. For me, communication is one of the most important skills required with my job role as 90% of my role involved speaking directly with various stakeholders including team members, senior officials, Zomato customers and restaurant partners. Apart from that, having the courage to take on responsibilities and having the accountability of one's own work helps a lot to produce good work. And lastly, it is very important to be a good observer and being present in the moment to imbibe the knowledge imparted to you as learning can come from the smallest of incidents.

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What are some new skills that you have developed while working in the company?

One of the most important skills I developed during my internship was to be a good listener and to have the patience to understand the other person's perspective before jumping to conclusions or starting to provide solutions. Every prospective client won't always be a great fit and you won't always do everything perfectly but it is important to have faith in one's ability and to keep on keeping on. Apart from that, I even learnt the nuances of data mining and web scraping for filtering out leads. Moreover, managing sales leads on excel, keeping a track of progress and always being punctual with follow ups were other important skills I learnt during my stint as a Sales Executive.

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