Summer Interns in Cricket
A couple of weeks back one visited a campus of a reputed Management school in the country to hire summer recruits. Having gone through a similar process a decade back in its southern brethren, one expected it to be a rather tame affair. A couple of companies came to the campus every weekend and picked up some interns.
One had heard of the madness that is the recruitment process today but it was more about the final placement, one imagined. All that a summer intern was supposed to do was a project in a particular field that would look good on his/her CV in his/her quest to land up a decent job. For the recruiting firm, it was a goodwill gesture that would hold it in good stead during the final placements as well. A significant number of summer internships offered on a campus would more or less guarantee a Day 0/1 slot.
There are some factors worth mentioning beforehand. Most students on the campus even today are fresh from their bachelor’s course and have had little or no job experience. They have landed up at the institute just 4-5 months back and have finished only the 1st term fully. So there is no CGPA to go by for a recruiter. Basically there wasn’t much to go on in the selection process but the fact that all of them had cracked the bats and cats of the world was thought of as a good enough filter.
The CV’s were an interesting read. Almost everyone had played Badminton/Table Tennis at the district level. One wondered why one found it so difficult to get through to the 3rd round of the District Badminton Championship during one’s younger days. On being quizzed about the current Men’s/Women’s Badminton/Table Tennis World Champion one drew a blank stare. But that’s a story for another day.
The concept of day slots for summer recruitments, it seems, has been an age old feature at most campuses now. So there are 2 Day Zeroes then Day 1 and so on and so forth. Two Day 0’s, Two Day 1’s is a marketing gimmick but that’s what the bright pupils are supposed to be good at, right?
The entire selection process hardly took a few hours as there were some 10 renowned firms trying to attract top talent from a very limited pool. If some candidate was liked then the decision had to be taken quickly. Else there was always some other firm waiting to pick him/her up.
The trend of Pre Placement offers to a summer intern has picked up considerably among MNC firms and a candidate is almost assured of a job on that basis unless (s)/he goofs up entirely.
One was just wondering about the motivation for someone to study seriously over the next 5 terms when someone is assured of a great paying job at the end of it all.
A summer intern working for a Big Name, may today be getting a better monthly package than someone who has worked for years in the industry. Some Alumni actually suggested in jest their intention to do only the summer internship every year instead of doing their normal round the year job.
That set one thinking. Does the summer intern remind anyone of a Viraat Kohli /or a Manish Pandey. Does the Alumni wishing for a summer internship remind anyone of an Andrew Flintoff or a Jacob Oram?
