Gaurishankar Swain – IFP Petro

Hey everybody:), Gaurishankar this side of the page. I am a pre-final year MEMS student from the state of Odisha. My main interest is in any field that involves a LARGE set of numbers (the capital LARGE doesn’t do it justice). So naturally anything data driven is where I find my comfort in, primarily finance and data science. Apart from this I am a huge sports nerd, I play football and badminton, and wish to be good at cricket. But yeh to tha mere baare mein, abhi kaam ki baat karte hai.

During my 2nd year, I was absolutely clueless about everything. A sudden transition from online to offline overwhelmed me with options and information. Everything started happening so fast that I was not able to make any kind of pre-planned decisions. With little-to-no thought, I applied to become the web convenor(cause events waale redundant lag rahe the) in all the gymkhana bodies and was luckily selected in the Institute Sport Council. During my tenure, I was blessed to be able to work on the Gymkhana sports app. A lot of the framework of the app was made, we just had to complete the essential parts before its launch, which gave me enough exposure to the field of web development and coding in general. Around the same time, I was working as a web coordinator in E-Cell as well, so in essence I could say I experienced 2 different types of environments. In the sports council, our sole task was to complete the sports app on time, so it proved to be a long term project, while in E-Cell, the sheer number of websites that needed to be perfected and launched exposed me to fast paced scenarios.

Working on a real life project gives you the idea about what all could be done and what all should be avoided, no amount of tutorials can compensate for the projects that you genuinely put your time and effort into(not the resume wala fillers 🙂). This will give you a flavor of whether you wish to pursue something or not. After our ICs took our resume session around September, I consulted with a few seniors to gauge what the whole fuss about internships actually is. Some said it was a way to gauge your interest, some said resume points, some said to gain industry exposure, but one thing was common: It is difficult through PT Cell for a sophomore (unless you are from CS, then TUB and franklin it is 👍). With the least expectations I started filling in applications for IAFs I was eligible for. Without discriminating in any kind of profiles and barely reading the roles, I had filled in all the companies that were being posted. Seeing my batchmates giving interview after interview, given that I wasn’t being shortlisted for any of them, sure was very disheartening. Days passed and we were almost towards the end of November when I became almost certain that this season wasn’t for me.

Luckily, one of the companies happened to shortlist all the applicants for their 1st round of Group Discussions. It was my first shortlist of the season and it was none other than IFP Petro :). I still remember being in Domino’s and getting the notification of having a GD in 15 min (can expect a little more time frame from the ICs). I ran back and sat for the online GD, which wasn’t a discussion per say, but just 5-10 students together in a call answering a question in a sequence. We were asked to name a product which we liked and mention why. It was a nice thrill given it was my first company process and got to experience how it is done. The next day itself I got the interview shortlist and I was elated!!

The interview took quite a different turn. IFP Petro had come to hire for both strategy and technical roles, and I was shortlisted for the strategy role. During the interview, the interviewer (Sahil Bhargava, an IITB Alum, super nice and chill person) saw my resume and mentioned that their technical roles wanted people who were experienced in app and web development. The only thing that I had done over the whole semester turned out to be fruitful in the end. So I got selected as a technical intern after giving the strategy interview :).

The internship started in December with 3 technical and 5 strategy interns. Initially the plan was to shift to Delhi for the month and do a from office internship, but due to some constraints the strategy interns moved while the technical interns worked from their home. Our job was to make a new MERN Stack application from scratch to streamline the process of collecting used oil from different locations all across the country and revamp the company website. I had a lot of learning in the duration of that month, working in a team and coordinating to ensure the smooth running of the plan of action. The internship was a fresh environment and setup to apply my work experience and got to actually gauge if I want to keep myself working in this field.

I’d recommend a few things to look over while preparing for GDs and Interviews. All of them sound generic, but they are generic because they actually work and are used a lot 🙂. As a sophomore, you are not expected to have a lot of technical or profile based knowledge, what the interviewer looks for in you is your enthusiasm to learn any new things and enough grip on the things you already know. That is achieved by how you present yourself in the selection process and how thorough you are with your resume. Be confident, and that is gained by having enough knowledge backing you. So have a tight grip on whatever you expect the interviewer to ask you and have the courage to steer the interview in your way.

My recommendation to all the sophies reading this, talk to the seniors you know and try to understand as many perspectives as you can regarding the 3rd yr internship season before you start with the 2nd yr winter internship. This will help you gauge what path you want to pick before the season has even started giving you an edge over the other. CPI IS A MUST! I have never been diligent enough with my academics but I was lucky enough to get this internship during my sophomore year, but I have reaped the consequences in my pre-final year season of having a sub-par CPI. You should keep a check on your academics and having a 8+ CPI should become an essential regardless of what kind of profile you are targeting. That’s kind of it from my end, feel free to reach out to me through any ways or means, would be happy to help you people out in any way I can!!