Onboarding to a new beginning:
As March rolled around, the uncertainty surrounding the internships due to the pandemic was haunting our minds. But the campus program team kept us in the loop, ensured us that our internships were safe, got our feedbacks and came up with a solution of a virtual internship. We also had a couple of informal con-call connects among the HR and other interns to get to know each other better before the internship began and got our queries addressed.
Our onboarding happened virtually, with activities planned for two days where we, the interns, got to interact with the top management and got to know about different functions in the company and e-commerce domain.
Support system at Cloudtail:
For each of our projects, we were assigned mentors and hiring managers, who set contexts for our projects and whom we could approach for valuable course corrections. A weekly connect with my hiring manager, and a more frequent connect with my mentor ensured that my work is going on the right track and, all of my ideas were heard and its feasibility evaluated.
Each of us also had a buddy assigned to us, whom we could approach for anything ranging from getting to know the culture, to getting ideas for our projects. Each of the interns also had HR POCs assigned to us, who would connect with us weekly to see if we were facing any issues/blockers with our internships and push to remove them. The message was clear- Cloudtail was providing us with various contact points to make sure we feel at home, and everyone in the organisation was approachable.
Due to the nature of my projects, I got to interact with a lot of employees within the organisation, and it could be seen that they made time to accommodate us, even when they were busy. I could also get feedback on my ideas from different people and not restrict it to my mentor/hiring manager.
We also had training sessions on various tools in the organisation which might be useful for our internships, and also a brief on the e-commerce industry and the careers it offers.The campus program team also ensured we had a fortnightly intern connect to get to know about our co-interns and their projects. We had a virtual fun activities session that helped take our minds off work.
Adapting to a virtual environment for the whole organisation could not have been easy. Still, Cloudtail made sure that we the interns were given ample opportunities to compensate for the difficulties we faced with our virtual internships. A choice was extended to us that we could opt for extending the 8-week internship by 2 extra weeks, which all the interns enthusiastically embraced.
My key takeaways:
I learnt a lot from my internship, from the technical know-how related to my projects, and how to align my work with the leadership principles in Cloudtail. Here are some of my key learnings:
1. Learning is crucial, the organisation provides you with the opportunities, contacts and resources. It is up to you to reach out and utilise those opportunities.
2. Quality can only be delivered by deep diving into each and every aspect of the solution. Think from multiple points of view and see if your solution addresses the problems from all of these points.
3. Any task, no matter how big and daunting at first, can be done by splitting into multiple subtasks and by planning for each of these subtasks.
4. The art of storytelling – it helps in putting your point across to people who might be entirely new to your projects. It is essential to make sure that your reports and data convey the story that you are so familiar with.
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