Move over college life…welcome to work life! (atleast an internship)
The son sat in his suit all dressed and prim and proper preparing for his internship interviews. I had watched ‘Alma Matters’ on Netflix and was bracing for the gruelling IIT placement season in his final year.
Surprise, surprise, the grueling season arrived a bit earlier! 🙁
For the initiated, my son is studying in IIIrd year, IIT Roorkee in the Engineering Physics stream. The pandemic may have robbed a bit of his college and hostel life but life goes on(Secretly though, as a mother, I am more than happy that he is at ‘home’ – safe! :))
The internship season:
The son was busy getting his resume ready about a month prior for the IIT-R internship season (the internship season started in the beginning of August) All resumes had to be verified before the actual date so that recruiters could actually understand that the projects and academic and other achievements are actually real! 🙂
Soon the internship season started in all earnestness. I was still under the impression that the internship placement tests and interviews will not be as grueling as the final placements in the final year. But I would soon see the hectic reality…
FUN FACT: COMPUTER SCIENCE JOBS ARE STILL THE MOST DEMANDED IN THE INDUSTRY AND MOST COMPANIES COME FOR THE CIRCUIT BRANCHES(EEE, ECE AND CSE)
COMPUTER SCIENCE JOBS ARE STILL HOT!!
Finance companies are always the first to troop in and they offered astronomical internship salaries. Some familiar names were American Express, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Adobe, Amazon, Salesforce, Google and more.
Day 1 companies were offering internship salaries of up to 2 lakhs/month!! 🙂 Of course, not all of them offer that salary. The internship salary slowly dropped to 1 lakh/month for Day 2 companies.
I still couldn’t imagine 20 year olds being offered this kind of salary!
Here are the steps in the internship season:
- First comes resume based shortlisting, wherein candidates are shortlisted for job openings based on their resume.
- Next the candidates have to attend a pre-placement talk of each company before taking their written test.
- Then, came the ‘written test shortlisting’. The written test itself was tough to crack and it was not easy to get shortlisted.
FUN FACT: SOME WRITTEN TESTS WERE EVEN CONDUCTED FROM 12:00 A.M. – 1:30 A.M!!
4. Once the candidates cleared the written tests, they were ready to face the “technical rounds”!
5. Some companies did two rounds of technical interviews while others did only one. The online interviews(in the current pandemic world) were conducted on various video conferencing platforms and the links were shared through the ‘Slack’ channel. Since a large number of companies were interviewing, candidates would sometimes have to juggle multiple written tests conducted at different times, and based on those results do multiple online interviews between different companies at different times as well.
This is an entirely nerve racking and nail biting process. Candidates might feel that they have done very well at an internship interview only to realize that they have not been shortlisted for the HR round! 🙁
Hence, candidates who are in the active internship process must continuously interview at multiple companies and must attend back-to-back written tests and technical interviews.
6. Once the candidate clears the technical rounds. they may have to do the HR round during which time they might get final internship offer! 🙂
Once a candidate accepts an internship offer from a company they cannot attend further interviews.
The internships at IITs are hectic and nail biting for the candidate who really wants to get into it. But it is worth the effort once you get it after all the stress of written tests, online interviews and HR interviews!
And yes, my son did get an internship with all these tight constraints! 🙂
Congratulations to you and to your son!
Thank you!
Congratulations. Quite an informative post BTW.
Thank you!
It’s nice to know that Computer Science jobs are still hot! I was about to think that they are off the shelves for now. A very informative post indeed! And congratulations to your son.
Thank you!
Its been a while since I read a personal account of placement process. Congratulations to both of you!
Thank you!
Congratulations!! To proud Mumma and son. Quite an informative post for students appearing for internships and placement.
I went back to my own engg days, applying for intership. The joys of bagging one!
🙂 🙂
Congratulations to your son and the family. This was a very interesting peek into the placement process. Quite surprised at the timings though!
Thank you, Mayuri…yes – crazy timings!!
Congratulations to your son and to you. These rounds of interviews can be very daunting. I was shocked to read about written tests conducted at after midnight. They should plan them better.
Thank you…..even I was shocked initially at the interview timings…hopefully they will change them sometime in the future…
Congratulations, Jayanthi. It took me back in time when my son was going through his first interview. And now he is gone already. 🙁
Hugs, Harjeet…
Congratulations Jayanthi.IIT helps create some very hardworking, intelligent engineers.I am wishing your son great success in everything he does.
Thank you! 🙂
Congratulations to you and your family, Jayanthi. Thanks for sharing about the process with us. Yes, computer science jobs don’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon.
Thanks Ritu!
Wow! What a huge difference in internships in computer science/ finance field and media. Good luck to your son!
Congratulations to your son and your family for getting through the placements. I still shudder when I think of 2002 when I had my placements ( no I didn’t clear but still got a job thanx to PS2 ( your hubby can explain that). I know it can get very very nerve wracking and am so glad your son passed it with flying colors!
Thanks Harshita..will check my husband about PS2..:)
Congrats to both of you.
wow Congratulations, that an achievement. BEST OF LUCK FOR GREAT FUTURE AHEAD
Congrats. But, I didn’t know getting an internship was so restricted. I mean I thought people were free to take up multiple internships if they had the time.
Very informative post. Congratulations!
Congratulations to your son and you! This gives clear insight to the internship process, which is like a precursor of a job interview. Well documented steps.
Being a career counsellor, your post piqued my interest. Congratulations to your son and proud parents. Being an alumini of the mighty IIT’s does have lots of advantages. Best wishes to your son for a bright future.
Congratulations to him and this post reminded me of the numerous interviews that we conducted and the hardwork prospective talent prepares with to face the interviews, not a technical person myself but had a good glimpse from a Human Resources side..
A proud moment to you as a father too.. congratulations..
Wow! Congratulations to your son and of course to you as well, for being a proud parent 🙂
Congrats to your son! This post brought back memories from my college campus selections!!