Devika Kironkumar: Our second year MBA student specializing in HR shares her Internship Experience at Capgemini

This was not my first stint at an MNC or even at an internship, having had prior work experience. However, these 2 months of summer internship definitely helped me reinforce my specialization preference. Capgemini has a well-structured summer internship program named Chrysalis, which engages the top B schools in the country. 

The main objective of this programme is to convert the internships into full time opportunities. This year we had 80 interns for Marketing, HR, Operations and Finance specializations joining from India’s reputed management institutes. I consider it a great honor to be one among the chosen few.

Internships are generally considered to be just a formality where most of them don’t get relevant hands-on experience. However, this was not the case with Capgemini. Not only were the projects identified for us beforehand, but there were regular dipsticks and mentor interactions as well to assess the progress of our work. This clearly shows how serious Capgemini is about their internship programme.

We started off with a 2-day induction and onboarding programme meant to familiarize us with the Capgemini culture and way of work. This also included panel discussions, gamification and preparatory talks from the CHRO and other vertical heads. This was a great platform for us to interact with the key decision makers of the company and understand their expectations from this internship programme.

Our first day at work included meeting our respective mentors and getting acquainted with the projects allocated. I was under the Talent Acquisition domain where the task from me was to facilitate Change Management and ensure compliance to a newly adopted Application Tracking System. It helped me gain knowledge about the whole talent acquisition process and how the new age technologies could change the whole segment. The projects identified were live cases and challenges which had a direct business impact.

Though posted in Mumbai for the two months, I got an opportunity to travel to Pune for a week to work with the recruitment team there. The internship at Capgemini has also been about building trust relations and networking with the team and other stake holders. There was never a time when I felt as not part of the team. My queries were dealt with the same amount of seriousness as that of any other senior employee. The time invested in us by our mentors and team members are worth mentioning.

Capgemini consider their people as their most cherished assets and they try to extend it to their interns as well, where they focus on providing us the best exposure and nurturing ground to develop business acumen. What Capgemini did help me do is to think beyond the tasks assigned, understand the overall impact and not hesitate to ask for help when needed.