The Perks of Being A Blibli.com Intern
In my opinion, a great internship consists of two main ingredients — what you learn, and how you feel. Being an Blibli.com intern is the perfect combination of constantly learning new things, and a rollercoaster of wholesome emotions, and here is why.
First and foremost, let me share a little bit of my background. I am currently a penultimate undergraduate student, studying Business Mathematics. As most universities in Jakarta oblige students to experience, my major in the university also requires an internship as a requirement to graduate. As a final-year student, I was massively intrigued by the wide range of opportunities in plain sight — starting from the financial sectors, creative industries, all the way to the technological industries. After a long and sustained effort of finding one perfect place I can enroll in, I came across a miraculous opportunity to participate in an internship interview for a Data Analyst Intern position.
Long story short, I went through the SQL test (which I actually have got my hands on only for two weeks at the moment) and the one-on-one interview with the Data Analyst Manager. With God’s helping hands and the approval from the universe, I was accepted as a Data Tracker Analyst Intern at Blibli.com. Unbeknown to me, two of my acquaintances from college were also accepted in the same division in Blibli.com (this fact will be relevant later in my story).
Every single person I met since the day I applied, not to mention the HRD and the computer systems team who helped me throughout the initiation process as an intern, treated me extremely well. In a nutshell, I would sum up my internship at Blibli.com as “well-fed and well-prepared”. Let me explain why I can boldly claim that statement in four points.
1. Enjoy A Buffet of Practice with Theories as The Appetizer.
Right off the bat, me and my fellow interns were challenged with a series of formidable tests regarding SQL and data trackers such as Google Analytics. It was quite strenuous for me personally with the amount of knowledge and experience I had at the time. Then it came to my thoughts, “am I about to deal with these theoretical tests for five months of my internship?”
After I finished the tests while still holding on to my worries, I realized something — me and my colleagues did not finish the tests at the same time. Though it might seem theoretical at first, where we must do the test, fail, study again and revisit the quizzes, the tests were actually given to assess our basic abilities and to prepare us to handle real-life databases which require spot-on precision and scrutiny.
Right when we were deemed to be prepared enough, we were put in different squads in the Data Analyst division, where I was placed to work together with my mentor, handling Seller Mobile and Wallet tracker databases. For me, it was an “all-you-can-eat” learning experience at Blibli.com. Let me break it down to you by listing some technical skills I managed to learn to use from zero in merely five months: SQL coding, Google Big Query, Google Data Studio, Airflow, Confluence, JIRA, and Android Studio. Due to many different real life cases of data analytics that occurred, I was taught all of those technical skills — not because they were a part of the internship curriculum. Also taking into account that many seniors in my division had just also learned what I was learning, I figured out that you will always learn new things in Blibli.com, just like in a buffet where you can always expect a new menu in every circumstance.
In my opinion, it is impossible to be an intern at Blibli.com and come home empty-handed — you will constantly learn new things there. And most importantly, everything you learn there is practical and applicable, no irrelevant knowledge that will go to waste. I could even confidently say that I learned much more in five months rather than reading dozens of books about data.
2. Your Own Pacing Matters Most.
Sure, I was given some deadlines to finish my tasks, but I know for a fact that they always were within the range of my capabilities. Compared to full-timers who always have to learn new things and finish their deadlines in time, I was always given the privilege to study at my own pace — no actual limit of how much I could explore or how much time I needed to learn something. Only after I got the hang of it, then I was given the task.
Blibli.com’s culture is very intricate about finishing the tasks, yet they value interns’ paces even more. Whether you want to crawl and get as much detail of a task as you can, or you want to walk and get practical alongside your colleagues, or you want to run through every single skill and get the gist of everything, Blibli.com provides the facilities for your own unique learning pace, from the materials provided, guides given, to the experts sharing their knowledge to everyone.
Much different compared to formal studies, where you have to learn the same thing over and over in a period of time or learn many things in a short amount of time — you can set your own time to discover your strengths as an intern at Blibli.com.
3. You Are Reminded of How Human You Are Despite The Tight Schedule.
You must have heard how employees complain about their work-life-balance being disrupted by the inhumane amount of tasks they need to do, especially in e-Commerce companies where we basically deal with customers’ and business owners’ satisfaction, meaning that every single day will have its own problems to be solved. There is no denying that Blibli.com also had a very tight schedule when I was interning there, but they had just the excellent measure to prevent us from burning out and to keep us psyched for what is to come.
Starting from daily updates, we were always encouraged to bring up the tasks we are about to do for the day, allowing data analysts in the team to help each other. We interns were not obliged to always put up an accomplishment or a task-well-done every single day, but for me personally, this swelled up a desire in me to contribute even more, while also being able to adjust my own schedule to my capacity. Then, we had the sprint planning where the team planned and assigned the tasks to every personnel for the next two weeks. This strengthened our communication and bond, as well as managed everyone’s schedule to ensure that there is nobody overexerting themselves.
Not only the routines, the full-timers also had book sharing times where each person read their own preferred book and shared it with the team. Fortunately, the interns were given the opportunity to listen in and be enlightened together with our colleagues. We were also advised against overworking and overachieving, and we were also reminded to take our breaks seriously. I have also heard that Blibli.com has organizations supporting their employees’ hobbies, but too bad that my college encouraged their students to apply for Work-From-Home internships.
This alone made me fall even more in love with Blibli.com, and I believe you will too! The work culture of genuine respect and support will make you feel at home, as well as shaping you into the best version of yourself.
4. Surrounded with The Best People.
Last but not least, you are automatically surrounded with great people the moment you become a part of Blibli.com’s family. As the proverb goes,
“it takes a village to raise a child”,
we all need to maintain our connections and interactions with the right people in the right environment. That is how I felt back when I was an intern at Blibli.com — I was never a stranger to them, nor an inferior, but a child who is nurtured well with their positivity and energy.
What I realized as soon as I became a part of the team is that I was never treated as an inferior or an underling. You surely have heard tales from all around where interns in big companies are turned straight up into errand boys, but it is an entirely different story in Blibli.com. As I mentioned in the previous point, the employees practice genuine respect and support towards each other, albeit there are differences in expertise and experience.
I felt genuinely respected throughout my on-the-job training and practice, despite my imperfections and mistakes. Not only that, being entrusted to handle important tasks in one of the biggest companies in Indonesia had a big impact on boosting my self-esteem, as well as my responsibility. Their positive attitudes, supportive nature, and thriving energy gave me all the comfort I need to learn as much as I can, yet still giving me the push to strive for more.
A positive work environment does not only consist of a couple of good friends to support you — it is filled entirely with colleagues who will lift you up when you are down and push you even further. Blibli.com offers us exactly that — the environment where all your weaknesses are accepted, and the people there who will turn those into valuable strengths.
TL;DR
Far from perfect, but Blibli.com was an excellent example of a workplace where I could learn all the things necessary for data analytics while enhancing my attitude and work ethics, and also given the chance to feel at home and appreciated for the work I had done. It is near the perfect balance of a people-oriented and result-oriented environment.
In other words, if you are looking for a company where you can learn and train as a data analyst, while being appreciated and treated equally to everyone else, without having to have a false sense of security, and be given a real purpose for what you do — by zero advertising means or exaggeration, come to Blibli.com.
I may or may not be a good writer, but I can guarantee that you will not regret becoming a Blibli.com intern.
