Intern Procedure @ ITC and other Industrial Firms: Rohit Tayal

Hi all!
My name is Rohit Tayal and I’m a fourth year undergraduate student of IIT Guwahati. I was  selected into a summer internship program at ITC  for the year 2016. I’m writing my experience here in order to help you prepare for the internship season that will start during the first month of your 5^th semester. My intentions are to help you prepare for any such selection procedure with a special focus on ITC.

Internship at IIT Guwahati (The General system): The selection procedure generally starts from the 2^nd or 3^rd week of the first month of your 5^th semester. In order to be completely prepared for your internship season, please make sure you do the following during your second summer.

Please understand that you won’t get an alert notification for most of these:

1) Bring all your documents and transcripts (class 10^th and 12^th etc.): Many people including me didn’t bring the required documents causing unnecessary stress since you need to submit these documents after scanning otherwise you might not be permitted to write them in your CV.

2) Apply for your college transcript: It takes over a week to have the transcript in your hands and you need them for your interviews. Apply for at least three of them for personal security.

3) Be ready with your CV points: Haven’t made a CV before? You are not alone. First download the CV Sample from DC++ and then research on the internet. Don’t get influenced by your seniors. Sadly, most people don’t know how to correctly portray the points that they want to put forward on their CV. Ultimate rule: Make it crisp and short. Your CV template which you HAVE to follow will be given by CCD. Ideal CVs should be 1.5 pages long (on IITG template). If you are applying off-campus, make sure to compress your CV to 1 page!

Making CV is not a one-day ordeal. You need to make sure that it is perfect.
DON’T put fake data in your CV. It will come back to bite you in your interviews. Trust me.
Present TRUE data in the best possible manner but don’t go overboard. Make sure that it appears only slightly more impressive than what you had actually done.

4) Go through HR interview questions online.

 

Selection procedure at ITC: Here I will describe the step by step procedure generally adopted by ITC officials for selecting candidates.

Step-1: PPTs and CV shortlist round – During the PPTs you will be given information about the company and the stipend that they will be providing to those who get selected. Please MAKE sure to study everything about the company beforehand. You do this by going through each and every tab of their OFFICIAL website. You should know about every program, initiative or strategy that they have mentioned on their OFFICIAL website eg. You should know that ITC is mainly a FMCG conglomerate. You should know the names of important people mentioned on their website eg. Director or founder’s name. You should know the recent stats i.e the turnover etc that they have mentioned. Do your best. The PPTs should serve as a brush up on what you already know.
After the CV shortlist, roughly 80 people will be left out from over 300 applicants. For better chances,
a) Your CPI should be between 8-9.5.
b) You should be an all-rounder. By that I mean, that you should be involved in things other than just academics. That could mean projects, PORs, competitions, scholarships etc.

Step-2: GDs (Group Discussion) –In group discussions, candidates are arranged in groups and each group is given a topic which they need to discuss. Now ITC focuses on situation based cases. These cases repeat themselves over the years so you can go through google to find some of the cases to practice upon. In a GD, you are judged based on your leadership skills, your ability to work in a group, your insight and your ability to come up with new ideas. Try to move the GD forward but not at the cost of the integrity of the case. DON’T start shouting during a GD and don’t argue. Put in your ideas into the pool or try to form a direction from others ideas. Believe in your idea and put forward logical explanations but don’t mess up the group dynamics and don’t make them move against you unanimously.

Practice a lot!
Around 18 people left!

Step-3: Technical-cum-HR interview– I think this was by far the toughest section of the selection procedure. The interview lasted for an hour or less. Initially they asked me a few HR questions like the city where I belong to etc. (Since I have lived in six cities in my life, I did not fail to mention this because it shows that I have experience) (Sometimes you might be asked to introduce yourself. Make sure that you have this ready beforehand. This is a very standard question in any interview and this is the only chance you are given to swift the interview in the direction you want to take it to.  Sadly, they didn’t ask for any particular strengths or weaknesses and they did not ask me to go through my profile or my CV). Afterwards, they asked questions from fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, thermodynamics, machines in workshop etc.  You should go through these topics beforehand. The questions varied from standard ones to downright crazy. When you are stuck in a problem, the thumb rule is to use common sense to try and formulate a methodological step by step procedure for the problem. ALWAYS interact with the interviewers and walk them through the problem that you are trying to solve. ALWAYS! In the end you will be asked, “Do you have a question for us?” Please ask a sensible question at this point which shows that you have gone through their website.eg. “I heard that ITC is not currently investing in solar energy even though there is much scope? Is there any possibility of that happening in the future?”
The question I asked was what made my experience extremely special (and different from others) and stressful at the same time! But I will reserve that one for those who would ask me personally as that was an unusual question and I am still not convinced that it was a right question to ask since I made that in the heat of the interview.

Around 7 people left.

Step-4: HR interview: Standard questions as to what are your working preferences, which location would you like to work in etc. They might ask a few brainteasers or technical questions. The main criteria on which I think they judged us was if we were true to our character instead of being FAKE. Learn to say NO if you don’t like something. Don’t go ahead and nod your head in every question!

4 people selected.

Make sure that you are a happy and cheerful person during the process and try your bloody best in every situation. Don’t get stressed!

– Rohit Tayal, B.Tech 2013-17 Batch, Mechanical Engineering Dept.