My Experience as a Product Analyst Intern @Angel Broking

Finding an internship in the middle of a global economic crisis is a feat in itself. I did what most diligent job seekers do: I toiled through a handful of online courses and built up a solid resume that I began sending out to companies. I had my share of interviews and passed on opportunities, given the overall scarcity of quality jobs, but fortunately — when things clicked, I couldn’t have asked for more! One of the country’s foremost brokerage houses, Angel Broking, took me on as Product Analyst. I was not only getting the job position I so wanted, but the opportunity to learn and grow with the best.

It’s been an amazingly exciting and insightful ride so far. I’d like to share the journey of my internship with you so that you too can benefit from some of my experiences.

Beginning of the internship…

On our first day, the other interns and I were familiarized with the work culture and company policies. We also performed some team bonding activities and took part in discussions with the HR team to enable a lively environment and to shake off any ‘Work-from-home’ disconnect. On the same day, I got in touch with my mentor, Rohit Verma, Product Manager at Angel Broking. We discussed the projects that he was currently working on and I was assigned to work on the same.

My first project was a Competitive Benchmarking of KYC journey of various brokerage mobile applications in India. Although the topic might seem fairly easy, I approached the task strategically. Instead of jumping directly into solving the problem statement, I took a step back to understand the problem clearly and to evaluate the scope of the problem. I talked with my mentor to finalize the parameters on which the whole idea of the project would depend. Then, I went through each app, prepared their journey flows, ran an analysis and then collated the inferences under twenty distinct parameters.👇

The idea was to acknowledge and understand the pain points as well as the “aha” moments that users face during their onboarding journey. Usability index is one such parameter that tells you if the user will connect with the product or not. Although I did not have any prior experience of this concept, I went through some research papers and a few articles, and after gaining sufficient understanding, I critically compared each app for its usability index on seven different parameters.

Scaling the level up…

My first project dealt with qualitative analysis and revolved around that domain alone, but for the second project, I had to perform quantitative analysis. This was challenging but interesting too, as I am fond of numbers. I started learning SQL, the database language used at Angel Broking. I asked for guidance from my colleagues who were already employed at the company; they were very generous with their time and always ready to clear my doubts. After two weeks of rigorous practice, I felt more comfortable with the queries and was able to build my first dashboard.

But this is where things really begin to get challenging, as I still had to work on the real problem statement which was to understand the user behaviour after their onboarding and segmenting them on the basis of certain parameters. We know that analysing the data and generating insights is time-consuming, but the real struggle lies in extracting the data and organizing it in a readable format. It took me two more weeks to collate the data, and make it coherent and useful in understanding the user behaviour.

After collating the data and preparing dashboards, it was time to derive value from those illustrations. Here, I had to observe every data point closely and had to also think critically so as to catch any break in the trend. The task was strenuous but the charts kept me going. Moreover, I was in constant touch with my mentor to discuss whatever I found interesting and finally, was able to deliver fascinating insights on user behaviour.

Apart from the routine work, we also had some refreshing exercises, to give us a break and enable us to explore new horizons. The most memorable one was the ‘Bug-Bash’. We were divided into teams with people from various domains. The motive was to test each and every module of the new Angel Spark app (beta version). Although it came across as a heavily techy-event, it ended up being very enjoyable. We had the opportunity to interact with people from other cross-functional teams, were provided with lunch coupons and some real money to trade with. The major experience was to know how a product is tested and how a simple, fun event can prove to be a game-changer for a new product.

Finally about my learnings…

This was all about my work experience. Now, I want to share some lessons I’ve learned along the way.

1. Always have an urge to learn more — The quote — “Master of one, Jack of all” should be the mantra of a person who wants to excel in the corporate world. Besides, your core projects, for which you devote most of your time; seek to explore new fields. This will enable you to think from newer perspectives. Even after your project/internship is over, take a short break then again get a jump start on learning about some new topic.
2. Prepare your work diligently — Whenever preparing any data/visuals/reports/decks, specify the scope and document formally. Do not give people a chance to think that your work is sloppy. There should be two objectives in your mind while preparing your work. First, your work should be unambiguous. Second, it should be understood within the least amount of time. The key here is mentioning the scope of your work explicitly and having symmetricity whether you are presenting a deck, an excel sheet or even a document.
3. Be frank and open with your mentors/colleagues — A very famous quote by George Bernard Shaw-“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honourable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing”, itself explains how a person should do his work. The workplace is not a place where you feel shy about your queries or mistakes and delay things. No one is judging you, in fact, everyone around will actively solve your queries. Also, this will allow others to understand you better and can also prove to be a stepping stone to build an ever-lasting bond.
4. Never say no to any new opportunity — Even if you are already packed up with lots of work, accept any new task given to you, as you might not know what new learning/experience it can bring. After my first project was completed, I was given an opportunity to create a chatbot for a certain situation (I cannot divulge too many details as it’s not live yet). Although, I have had a chat using plenty of these, but never created a chatbot. Hence, I grabbed the opportunity and developed an interactive bot and trust me, it was the most memorable task during my whole journey.
5. Build connections across fields — This is the most crucial aspect of any corporate field. “Your network is your net worth”. Hence, connect with other interns and colleagues across different fields, discuss their experiences, their field of work and if possible, assist them in some way. This will not only make your work more enjoyable but will also assist your future prospects.

Well, this internship has definitely moulded my personality for the corporate world and I am grateful that my tasks did leave some traction for future work. Thank you Angel Broking for providing me with this internship opportunity. I was really lucky to have a mentor like Rohit Verma, I learned a number of things from him. If I talk about the work culture, I frequently approached people in the company, across departments too, without even hesitating for a minute and always got a quick and positive response.

The profile of an analyst can be a very vast domain, it can be product-oriented, customer-oriented, market-oriented, etc. To excel in any field you have to be curious about every minute detail and think about it in a critical way. Also, the role of an analyst does not end by only figuring out the underlying problem, but he has to come up with unique solutions too.

Thank you for sticking with me till the end. I hope that this article has given you some idea of the workflow and documentation of my journey — that you are able to take something from it. If you have any questions just add me and let’s chat on LinkedIn.