Gone are the days when colleges closing after every semester meant long-drawn holidays, hour after hour of doing nothing or indulging in your favourite pastime, reading books and watching TV! It is a competitive world out there and every experience gained and exposure acquired is an edge earned over your competitor. And that is why students today swoop down on every internship opportunity available to them. It adds volume to the resume too! But there is no standardised or organised way of going about it as often there is a mismatch between the needs of the company and that of the student. Offering a solution to this is >HelloIntern.com — an internship portal that bridges the gap between companies that are looking for talented interns and students looking for quality internships.
Revelation
The seed for the idea came when four freshmen at IIT-Bombay hit a roadblock while they were on the lookout for suitable internships. The dearth of information about opportunities is what prompted them to start HelloIntern in 2006, now acquired by Angaros Group Pte Ltd., Singapore. “Changing times have compelled India Inc. to look at human resource from a different angle. Grooming interns into prospective employees is becoming an integral part of human capital planning and talent recruitment strategies. Be it interns or permanent employees, the need for qualified and motivated workforce is always felt. Hiring interns has proved to be an effective way of increasing retention rate and has also enhanced the ROI,” explains Malavika Jaggi, Senior Specialist — Business Development, HelloIntern.com.
How it works
What the website does is facilitate internships across various sectors from retail, engineering, automotive, IT, finance to travel and tourism with the online/Internet sector topping the demand chart. All you have to do is register with the website as either a student looking for internships or a company seeking interns. Till date more than 23,000 students and 2,000 organisations, including start-ups, are reaping the benefits. Their recent initiative is the Global Internship Programme that enables foreign and Indian students to team up and work on a project in an Indian company.But coming back to the fundamental question, why are internships important? Malavika Jaggi answers: “During the internship period, an intern gets practical and hands-on experience working on real time projects. The exposure to the corporate world enables interns to identify one’s own strength.
It is also the best time for networking and building strong industry relations. The intricacies of organisational functioning are learnt at close quarters.”
