IC SPOTLIGHT FEATURE — OCTOBER
IC Feature of the Month: Rohan Chatterjee
Rohan is a Commerce graduate from St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta(2019). He is currently working as a Strategy Consultant at a political consulting firm.
He has led Media Sales for Uber in Andhra and Telengana and worked in Sales Management at startups like UberEats and Dunzo.
Rohan is a State Level badminton player and was the student coordinator of his college’s placement cell. He has won several business competitions and conclaves across the country. He believes that he is a culmination of his education and the people he has met and learned from.
To view the entire conversation tune in below
Tell us about your fond remembrances from college life. What were the things you were thinking of?
So if I were to go back, I would always categorize to be this person who always followed the herd. I always had this herd behavior mentality. Back in school, I didn’t really have this concrete idea or plan in my mind that “hey, Rohan, this is what I’m going to do”. When I entered college, I had the determination to stand out. I wanted to make a mark out of the 700–750 people. From that point on, I tried to cling on to the opportunities which came along my way.
There were events, there were fests there were a lot of things happening. More importantly, there are a lot of opportunities to excel. I’m contributing, but also, let’s say, it’s like exposing myself to this new facet, which is, like business events and conclaves and sports, which are taking place. So it was a lot of things happening at one point, especially in the first year. Unfortunately, I didn’t give any precedent to academics in my first year, which I should have. I always tell my juniors that no matter what you do, let’s not deviate from the academics, because it does matter at some point or the other no matter who you are, where you are.
I would like to believe that I excelled in a lot of things. I did fail in a lot of things. But all I can say is that I did take a lot of opportunities. I didn’t let them go. I have conversations today with a few of my closest friends in college that there were times when there was this random audition event that was taking place or a random first interview, which I just went for. I used to stay in college after college we used to have practice for badminton, for fests. I used to stick to college and I saw a lot of opportunities coming. So all I can say is that I exposed myself to everything which was out there. Because otherwise, you don’t really know right? So college life for me was a culmination of that obviously till the in the first year, because even in the first year, I got a, I got a good opportunity to work in a great and my great startup as well. I think that I was quite satisfied by the end of the first year, still having the herd mentality behavior.
My first breakout of sorts, when I entered college was all my closest friends were starting CA, which is something which you do when you start B.Com. It’s more or less is more or less a majority of folks doing that, right? So I also took my articleship form, if I’m not mistaken. I feel that was my first breaking out. Because I didn’t end up submitting the form and I’m so thankful for it. Because I think I would have I would have really sucked at it. Where I am today, perhaps I don’t see myself becoming a CA. So that was my first breaking out.
And I realized it was good, right?
Because right after that things did fall in place. I did it I did end up getting an internship, I did end up getting decent grades in the second stem. So, the point is things did fall in place. And I realized that, hey, you can choose what you want to do.
So, coming to, the most interesting part of the story, your internship at Uber. Can you tell us what exactly happened, you know, the series of events that happened, and how you ended up joining Uber after your second year?
Uber, again, for me was a long story, right? Because on the face of it, I became this person who bought into Uber in college initially, right. And, and it was big at the onset of it. But again, there was a lot of backstories associated with it, it wasn’t just this one-time thing, because I remember right after right after the first year either when I was still playing badminton, and at that point of time, I used to do about eight to nine hours of practice a day. So I didn’t really have the time to focus that focus on any sort of work I was doing. Because back then I to be very honest, was trying to, like push and break that threshold of professional ports.
And obviously, unlike academics, which has to deal with the core, the business world or in general, the corporate world, if if you study, there’s a 99.9% chance that you’ll land something decent, right? But with sports, if you give your 110%, there’s still a 99.9% chance that you won’t do anything in life. Back in back in 2017, I did take a call, right? I was playing and then I was also working. I did end up leaving my first internship because it was hindered by my sports life.
So at that point, I had actually applied to Uber for the first time. Not a lot of people know this, but I didn’t get through that. I didn’t get through that. I would I still console myself saying that I couldn’t because they had asked me for a full time working schedule. So I still consoled myself saying that. I didn’t get through because I was still playing. But maybe there’s a good possibility that they just didn’t select me. I mean, I will never never know about it. But that being said, I think second in the middle of the second year, I did apply for an internship at at at Uber. Surprisingly, it was on Internshala. I was just I was this guy was applying for an internship because there was a decent sort of salary associated with it. The job profile was also something like a marketing internship at Uber. So it seemed interesting.
I was essentially not doing anything else then, because I was injured. So I was like, might as well just try it out. So I did apply and I had generally no hopes of going forward because they were already like 630 or 700 applicants. So so I just applied for the fun of it, because I had my account all sorted. So I just needed to click on Apply. So I did, and I think on the same day, I got a call from the marketing manager. And I didn’t know much about Uber. When she called me she started asking me a lot of questions about UberEats, which is something which I didn’t know, back then. She had a basic interview with me over the call. And the next day, she called me to the Oval Office in Salt Lake. But I still didn’t know anything about UberEats then. So I went for the interview. And I think she asked me what do you know about Uber Eats? And, and I genuinely didn’t have a clue what is happening out there. Right. So I asked her that I mean, I’m generally not, I am genuinely not sure what this is. But if you can give a brief idea, perhaps I can break it down for you. So she told me that this a food aggregating platform, we have just started in Bombay, and a few other cities, we are launching in bulk within the next, I think a couple of months. Right? So I told her, “Oh, so is it something like Swiggy?” And the second later, I realized that you can’t really abruptly ask questions like this.
So that has been a learning curve since that point, right? Because I recall, I think we had about four interviews. I was just a college student, right. So I don’t have the interview, perhaps ever thinking, am I the right fit? Which is rightfully so, so big. And, and, and to be? I think, to be honest, even the guys who were in my team, later on, ended up taking my interview the first or the second, t? So it was a long process. Right. It was a long process of a lot of people judging. And from then on, I think the last interview was taken by my manager back then who ended up becoming my manager, the city head. I would like to believe that organizations like Uber or let’s say any, any organization where we really talk about global culture, the environment, the ethos of how you are let’s say, portraying yourself to be is completely based on where you are in an environment. So we serve
organizations, you really understand that they really value what you say. And you’re not taking at face value. Right? What you are, what you are at any point of time in life isn’t necessarily what you’re judged by. They also set tend to understand where they are, right. So what they do is they try to take out the best in you. And I found out things about myself that I didn’t know back then. And this is very early, we’re talking about right? This is this image of a second-year student who’s just going for an interview, who thinks too highly of himself as well, right. And now, I’ve landed this interview. But it wasn’t the case. Right? It wasn’t the case. The case was that, hey, they have given me a brilliant opportunity, just to understand myself a little better.
Perhaps because I was genuine, perhaps because I didn’t fake it. Because there were a lot of candidates, right? There are a lot of candidates who are coming from, like proper B schools, they have a lot of things happening out there. So I knew that perhaps if I were to fake it, there were a lot of people who had better stories than I do. So I stuck to the grassroots. I stuck to the fact that I love playing, I was honest enough to say that I’ve already not landed a job before so I think everything culminated to them understanding that hey, we can perhaps try this guy out. That’s all right. Luckily, that was the opportunity I was I was searching for and I didn’t know the madness of the situation. After the last interview with the City Had, they ended up offering me a full-time role. And I was unsure of what was happening because I asked them the or rather, I confided in them that I’m still in college. So he asked me at what time my college ends. So I was like, I think till 9:50. He was surprised. So then he said that if you don’t have a problem, we don’t have a problem. And that was the tipping point, right? For me, I understood that this environment really makes you feel at home. That’s one. But more importantly, it gives you that trust. It puts that trust in you. And it ensures that, hey, we can, let’s say try this thing out. Although it’s new, it hasn’t been tested. So so that was how I landed Uber. Again, again, a story which I think I cherish a lot. Because who I am today, I would say that more than anything else is because of the kind of environment I was thrown into, at such an early point in time. If I’m not mistaken, I think one of my close colleagues also joined us soon after, in college. He joined soon after, and we had a great time, right. And we used to always discuss that. Because the first day if I’m not mistaken, I saw the City Head playing table tennis with the security right. And you immediately understand what kind of an inclusive environment you’re being thrown into. And, and that is something which was an eye-opener for me. So again, the process being simple, that maybe you can just be honest. But again, the most important part would be that I got really lucky. Here a tip right for anyone would be to just prepare yourself before the interview. I mean, me asking the manager, what Uber Eats is, or comparing it to a Swiggy was a stupid move. And I just got lucky, right? I just got lucky because perhaps there are other things weighing heavier, which they wanted.
But today, if I am an interviewer, I would not appreciate if an interviewee doesn’t know. So again, things you learn, eventually, things you learn with time, but just a heads up from things I did from maybe.
Having been a part of two different setups, I two different scales, what do you think, went behind your decisions? And what are the differences that you’ve observed?
So, for me, right, I would go out of my peripheral of the commerce ecosystem, right. I will not let it go to science, because I am not a subject matter expert there. But if I were to stick myself to the field of commerce in general, which can include marketing, finance and everything in general, I would like to believe that we break it down into a few major categories, right? You can talk about consulting in general, which can be any sort of consulting — financial consulting, management consulting, strategy, consulting. And then come those big names like the MBBs of the world, right. I would like to say that to answer your question that when you see yourself at the likes of Uber or Dunzo, which is one, let’s say is trying to break through with a brilliant idea. and is already up there trying to make the maximum profit out there from a loss-making situation. So these two organizations, I feel at the core is still the same.
I started working with Dunzo right after college. And it was a very interesting role. I was not working with the B2C platform. Because that is what Dunzo was known for. I was working for this new project, which was called Dunzo for Business, which had started off and it was there in Bangalore was there in a few states, but in Hyderabad, it was still new, and I started with there. I was, let’s say, given the opportunity to grow the vertical from scratch. So it was a lot of things happening. It was a lot of leeways which I got, a lot of different decision making ownership, which I had with me, and a lot of choices I made. But that being said, I would like to believe that at a certain point in time, unless it’s your thing you’re working for, it’s hard. And that’s completely me, right? Everyone has a different perspective. Let’s say I want to grow this specific metric. For the next week, I want better growth. But a lot of things need to go behind that work, right? Perhaps I need to ensure that the geolocation is increasing, perhaps I need to ensure that the supply of driver-partners is increasing a certain point, a lot of factors coming into play. And at the same time, a lot of let’s say, verticals also come into play. So the ops team handles itself, the supply-demand enters itself in these situations. If you’re getting ownership of the micro-project, that means you’re lucky. But you still understand that unless it’s your thing, your ideas will always be ideas, right? And the implementation of the same will always take time. Because at the same time when you are thinking this is your priority, the leadership will obviously think that there are more important things, which there are. So that way, I somehow felt that for me, I would want to be in a place where my impact of whatever I’m doing — my daily work, my process-oriented work, my ideation work, everything, is more. Dunzo, for me, was amazing in the way that it was a great environment. I found some gems who are the best friends I have right now. So Dunzo again was great. But from there, my first manager, gave me a call one fine day. And he asked me what I was doing? And I said that this is what I’m doing. I’ve been working with them for the last, I think four months or something. I think I didn’t mention this right. The reason why I left Uber was that I felt that it became very monotonous. It was like rather than increasing momentum, the focus was on to keep the momentum same. It ends with the individual not being able to reach the fullest potential. So I confronted my manager per team back then and he was glad to say that maybe you can have something else in your portfolio. You can try it because you have the age at I moved on I work with Dunzo. But then he called me and said that so there’s this new opportunity to work. And I wasn’t sure, right, because Dunzo was great for me back then. It was just working out and things were happening, I just shifted cities. And again for months, and you don’t change a new job, right? You just don’t. So a lot of things were going on in my mind. I spoke to my relatives who are higher up on the corporate ladder, spoke to my seniors. And they all said the same thing. That the opportunity was of the next level right, if not the next to next level. So at that point in time, I was asked to lead the entire region of AP and Telangana. And, individually, so. So that, again, for me was the incentivizing factor. I knew that perhaps, if I joined this, and it wasn’t Uber Eats, again, it was who was it was the core business again. And I knew that if I can join this, the kind of impact I can have will be on a very high level. So that was my psyche behind choosing to work. And of course, there was a lot of difference in the kind of payscale which came along as well. So it was just a better opportunity. And thankfully, so all my colleagues and all the leadership in Dunzo tried to have conversations, but they were super cordial. They were super understanding about what was happening. Because even they somehow understood that this was a better opportunity. And I’ll be perhaps forever grateful to them for that. Because you don’t always see that you’re in an environment. And that’s the difference, right? At the corporate, all these businesses who want to grow are the same, because unless you’re inclusive as an organization, unless you understand what your employees want, and what makes them happy, you can’t really optimize the workforce. And the workforce is everything, right? Because the workforce is doing everything. So that way again, super fortunate to have folks like what I found in Dunzo. But that was my move from Dunzo. To Uber, in a span of five months. I did have a lot of thoughts. But perhaps after a month or so I realized after the first deal, speaking to the likes of all the top CXO level folks in India, not even the state, right? Be it from Flipkart, be it from Amazon, there were so many things happening and I was just this 21-year-old guy was just like beginning it at all. It was just this brilliant world I was exposed to. And at the same time, I was given the responsibility to manage. So the opportunities were thrown at me quite early. I recognized them quite early. I didn’t let them go. But more importantly, I feel most that it was just on the job learning, right? Because I can literally categorize myself to be nothing else but a generalist. Right. And we generalists try to do everything, right. Yeah. And, my manager said that as a generalist, you need to be a jack of all trades, but a master of one.
I would like to believe that I am really good at communication. I would like to believe that I’m really good at negotiation.
I tried to utilize that element of it, that facet of it to the best of my ability, where I was working. So again, back to Uber, but this was a very different world, right? Because this was a different city. This was a different office. This was a different work profile I was working with. I was luckily working for this team, which was just like, I think 14 or 15 members in India. So that way, I realized that individually what all we were doing that was that was impacting way, way more than a regular person at work. I was working for this vertical Global Marketing Solutions, where we weren’t we were trying to use Uber vehicles as an advertising platform. So we were telling the brand that hey, you can use the vehicles for on the top branding or inside the top branding, or perhaps you can use it for sampling. And it’s not just going to be a regular outdoor marketing platform for you, right. It’s going to via a platform, which gives you intrinsic and extrinsic data associated with the OTT. In today’s world where we are marketing in such a scientific way, what Uber tried to do was just bring things to perspective by giving a lot of real-time data. And that became a pitching point for us. So through I individually spoke to so many people.
When you close a deal, which is perhaps a 50 or 60 lakh one and our 10,000 driver-partners are getting directly getting it credited to their salary. That’s a big thing. Right? That’s where you, that’s where you go back home and think that hey, Rohan, you have done a good job. Because that impact, which you wanted to see today is tangible. It’s not speculation anymore. So again, Uber, for me was a great experience, unfortunately, Iw was affected by the layoffs. So that way, even after let’s say, our entire team was laid off, none of us was essentially sad, right? Because we knew that as an organization, these are things that need to be done. because of no one’s hand. That’s how I took it. So it was great for me as well.
What are the things that you know, if you are an interview, or if you are, you know, kind of looking for someone in your team, you would look for our maybe you can talk from the other perspective, where what are the red flags that you generally notice any advice that you have from that?
Surely. Firstly, I would like to say from the interviewee's perspective, right, because I would still like to believe that I’m majorly in that category. Even now, and I believe that the most crucial element here is to keep the ball in your court. Right as an interviewee, like, this is how I feel right? That’s how I approach things.
What I’m trying to say here is simply that as an interviewee, we always have this psyche that the interviewer is perhaps there to grill in the interviews, or to ask you things which you don’t know. But you don’t know anything. Right? I don’t know anything. There is there’s a 99.9% chance that an interviewer can ask you a work-related thing that you don’t know. But they choose not to do that. They are cognizant of what you might know, because of the kind of field that you’re coming from.
You need to be that person who keeps the ball in his court.
And what I mean by that is in I think the last phase, right, the last phase I after I was laid off from Uber, and I genuinely wanted a break, right I was in, I was in no rush whatsoever to get a job. And I was okay with it. Ah, we had the good severance package that I got, perhaps. I was okay with it. And there were a lot of people who said that, why aren’t you working? Because I was, I mean, the only good thing for us, which I started doing was I started meditating. Right? Ah, and that’s, and I’ve been doing this for the last seven months, right every day. So that’s, that’s maybe the only good thing that I did during the lockdown for my own benefit. But apart from that, I was chilling, right? I was doing nothing else I was reading here and there.
But I was not having any expectations out of me, which surprised a lot of people. And when I say a lot of people, I mean a lot of close people who care about me. So I do care about what they say as well. But that being said, I knew where I stood right, I didn’t have that rush to land a job. I didn’t want to apply to 2000 different companies are just to get that job, because maybe yes, a lot of it stems from privilege, which I duly acknowledge, but at the same time, I needed that break to understand where I want to be next. I genuinely wanted to understand, what is it that I want to do? And with that, I mean, go back to the same question again, that what are the things you don’t want to do?
Yeah. So I kept on adding things I kept on adding things. And from that point on, the first thing, which I would suggest people, I would suggest, folks, is to really understand what you don’t want to do.
Because there is an umpteen number of jobs, there is umpteen number of opportunities. And again, yes, you need to improve on your soft skills. Hard skills can come along the way. Of course, you can do this, that, but you really need to, let’s say sharpen in the way you speak, the way you present yourself. You need to do your research. So the second, this brings me to the second question, right? Always know who is interviewing you? Always, always do your research well. So I think I went through about three or four interviews during this entire lockdown phase before I chose where I’m working currently.
And I ensure that I’m asking all the HR members who are going to interview me and if they can send me their LinkedIn profile? I go through that person, if that person is hopefully active on LinkedIn, I will go to that post-event where he or she, in terms of our educational background, in terms of what they have done, what are the key metrics they have changed? What are the things they look for? Because usually, the hack is that you’re not don’t have to talk about what he has done.
But if you can bring the conversation to things which, like on lines with things he has done, right?
So you need to read up about the person who’s interviewing you. And generally to say that so I always tend to end my conversations been a positive one note. Like with “Hey, let’s let’s try to connect offline as well.” Right? Let’s try to connect if I ever come to a Bangalore or I had a Hyderabad wherever that person is or if you’re coming to Kolkata, I would always want to go out for a cup of coffee. You want to take the conversation offline.
So the thing is that it’s not about the fact that where you come from or not about where you are you getting a job right now, it’s about you having it in your mind that things will fall in place, because it will, at the right the time again. I understand that a lot of people come from positions where the desperation calls for it. So that is a different conversation we can have right? But if there is no desperation associated with it, let’s break that.
Or get an MBA because we need to get it because that’s some way in my opinion messed up. Right? Because I took my classes, like, CAT tuitions for at least a year and I was doing reasonably well, right. But again, that was perhaps my second breakout. I didn’t end up taking the CAT. And, and that was maybe because a lot of folks who have come from the likes of Harvard’s and MIT told me to get a few more years of experience. But I didn’t have a genuine answer as to why I was going for an MBA. Because you can always make up that answer because that’s one of the most important answers but I didn’t have it and today I can say that if ever go to a B school I will be that first like front-bencher who takes down everything, who tries to top the class and not stay behind. Because MBA is that one facet where you are doing it because you really want to do it rather than the need of it? And, and because, again, we feel that there are nothing out there for non-MBA students, but there are. If you bring a certain set of skill, if you bring a certain sense of, of diversity to the organization, no one cares about an MBA. And, and that’s the reason why I tried it out, right, I tried it out by not going to B School.
And I, again, there’s a good possibility that I perhaps wouldn’t have gotten through been given a 99.9% chance there. I would like to do it at a time I want to.
I don’t hassle myself a lot. I don’t think that hey, today, things didn’t work out so I need to beat myself around it. Because tomorrow things might. It might not. But it might. Right. So it’s about putting in that effort, of course, and I am a lazy bum at times. There are times when I want to do things which I don’t. But again, I don’t beat myself up. Because the time is not running away all of us, right? All of us. We have umpteen amount of years left, touchwood. And we need to let’s say if not a concrete plan, we just need to ensure that we allow things to fall in place rather than being that person who’s curating everything because we can’t. That plan just doesn’t work out. You asked me about the interviewer perspective, right? I would not like to delve much into that. Today, if it’s a good interviewer, they don’t want anything but to know who that interviewee is. And most importantly, that there was a job which I didn’t get through.
I understood after a very good conversation with the interviewer that if I’m not getting through the job, it’s not because I am not equipped or good enough. It’s because they have found a more definite fit for the job.
So again, my suggestion, which is out there is that if you don’t get through things, it’s not because you are stupid, bad, we’re not good at something. It’s just because you’re not the right fit. It is because what you get to the table is not what they want at this point in time. And that that doesn’t make you bad. It just makes you someone who is right for something else. So just don’t beat yourself to it. Just give yourself that time, right? Because things will fall in place. That’s about it.
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