INTERN STORIES
Intern Story#13: Naman’s PM Internship @ Internshala
Naman Goyal is currently a Product Manager at Internshala Trainings. He is a Mechanical Engineering graduate (2016–2020) from Chandigarh Engineering College, Landran, Punjab. As an engineer, he always wanted to solve problems around him.
Naman’s Trysts with Problem-Solving
I participated in his first problem-solving competition (project competition) when I was in 6th standard. I submitted a project idea for a competition organised by the National Innovation Foundation, for school students.
I submitted this project idea: To automatically switch off the room lights with a sensor-based system (LDR sensor-based foot-mat, removing your shoes would complete the LDR circuit, connected with the room’s MCB and would switch off the room lights).
Unfortunately, I did not win that competition.
But I kept on participating in different competitions and my participation in project building competitions helped me in cracking my Product Management interview at Internshala! :)
In my 4 years of college, I participated in around 45+ competitions at all levels: International, National, State, University and College level project competitions!
I won 16+ awards/laurels and in my journey of 4 years, I built more than 11 projects and filed 11+ patents.
My first project in the college (spent only 80 Rs.), helped me to win many project competitions!
It was a project to prevent people from taking their hands out of the buses’ windows. We as a team had participated in our first Science Day’s Project competition (in 2016). We were searching for some problems and this problem took our attention. We researched and started thinking of a possible, convenient and easy to be installed solution.
We used some set of sensors with an alarm buzzer attached to it. Whenever anyone would take their hands out from the buses’ windows the sensors would get activated and the alarm would buzz up, hence indicating the conductor and the helper inside the bus. (A quick demo video of the project, Patent has been filed and published)
We won that competition (1st Runner Up and Cash prize of 3000 Rs.). Then we participated in the Inter-Department project competition and won that too! We went on to participate in the Inno-Tech competition (A project exhibition competition organised by Pushpa Gujral Science City, Kapurthala, Punjab and won that competition as well (1st Runner Up and Cash prize of 7000 Rs.). We participated in the inter-college project exhibition at Chandigarh University and won a prize over there as well.
We were even in Finalists (Top 10, all over India) for a B-Plan competition organised by Christ University, Bangalore. Winning all these prizes/awards gave us a lot of self-confidence and we went on filing our first patent for this idea.
We formed our team and gave our team a name as The M3N (We were four members and picked up initials from individual names as: Mohit, Mrityunjaya, Mohd Jafar, Naman Goyal) and got our T-Shirts printed with our self-designed logo (It’s in the form of a sports car representing 4 Engineers from Mechanical Engineering background and would always be moving).
We never looked back after that. We went on participating in a lot of project competitions (Some amongst those were SIH Software and Hardware Editions 2018, 2019 [1st Runner Ups], AICTE’s Chattra Vishwakarma Awards [National Finalists], UNESCO’s Youth Citizen Entrepreneurship Challenge [Best Idea badge, Top 10], Got 1 lakh grant from IEDC CGC-DST, Govt. of India).
I had maintained a decent CGPA (Graduated with CGPA 8.54) throughout my college journey and was always in top 5 or top 10 position holders. I even held a lot of positions of responsibilities (Head-Coordinator, Team Leader, Head Organiser etc.).
Doing all these activities, I realised I was indirectly and unknowingly preparing myself for the Product Management role. Because I was able to:
- Build a problem-solving attitude (Approaching the right problem, understanding the pain points, doing a proper market research/analysis, gathering data and targeting the right problems)
- Convert the ideas into reality (practical execution, hands-on experience)
- Implement my learnings in a structured way (Learning from the past mistakes, using limited resources, breaking down bigger tasks into smaller individual tasks and working on them)
- Interact with people from different domains (Building and engaging/interacting/coordinating in a team with people having different skill sets)
At the end of the day, This is what all a PM does! :)
Getting hired (Application Process, Interview Experience)
I always wanted to work in a Non-Technical domain (other than Mechanical Engineering) but in the domain which could test my engineering skills (Problem Solving, Logical and Analytical Skills, Structured Thinking, Interpersonal skills etc.) at every point.
In the 7th semester, we had to sit in placements and try our best to get placed. I was also looking for placements in Non-Tech companies but couldn’t find a suitable domain according to my skill sets until one day when I landed onto Internshala’s careers page and found an opening for both Product Management Internship and the Product Management full-time role.
The role’s description (do have a look, it’s pretty interesting!) grabbed my attention and Eureka!, I found my dream role. While reading the description, I could realise that I could be a fit for this role. I wanted to apply for the full-time position and went ahead for the same (shared my resume with the HR)
The application process had 5 rounds (every round being an elimination one) in total, starting with:
- Resume Shortlisting
- Assignment Submission
- HR Interview
- Interview with the CTO and a senior PM
- Final Interview with the CEO
I enjoyed the complete process and was not a bit nervous in any of the rounds (It helped me to clear all the rounds successfully)
The process was a bit long but it tested all my skills which they had mentioned in their role description. I had an amazing interview experience, the team coordinated with me at every point and I did not face any hassle.
Talking about the interview rounds, Assignment submission was the most interesting for me, I researched for a few days over the Problem Statement provided, started thinking out the solutions and one day sat for straight 13–14 hours, and submitted the assignment, cleared all the rounds successfully and was offered an Internship role with a PPO.
This is how I got an offer from Internshala for the role of Product Manager.
Internship experience
The internship experience was amazing. You could hear Internshala saying that Internshala is built for the Interns by the interns considering a large number of people in the team have started out working as interns and converted their internship to a full-time role.
Internshala has a great culture and every team member portrays all the culture values.
The first day was amazing when I entered the office, the vibes were pretty cool and cheerful! (What else do you need on your first day? :P) . My day started with getting introduced to my manager/mentor (Deepa, Senior PM at Internshala Trainings) and went ahead with an amazing ice-breaking game.
For 1 month, I had an incubation period where I was learning about different things (team, culture, team structure, product, 1 on 1 interaction with different stakeholders with whom I was going to coordinate).
Every intern is provided with a well structured (for 360-degree growth) 6-month plan (1-day internship once in a month in any domain inside Internshala being my most loved. We could do a one-day internship in different domains and could understand more about their work from a dedicated mentor. Full-time team members could also do 1-day Internship anytime!) which helps him/her to learn, explore and experience various things about the role and other things.
As an intern, They gave me full ownership of the projects on whichsoever I was working. I gradually started picking up the pace in my work and started working on Major projects and minor projects.
Throughout 6 months, I worked on a lot of projects and learned a lot of things:
- Prioritization (Solving the right problem at right time and managing it)
- Structured Thinking (Thinking about solutions by digging deep into a problem and finding its root cause)
- Data-driven approach (for always solving different problems)
4. Improved my interpersonal skills (interacting with different stakeholders with different teams and doing stakeholder management) amongst others.
My day always starts with a daily stand-up meeting (keeping a track and checking the progress of different projects). I then plan my day according to different tasks, put on my earphones and get to work (with tea and coffee breaks :P)!
Advice to aspiring interns
My advice to all the interns would be:
- Ask a lot of questions (Yes, a lot!)
- Clarify, when in doubt
- You would make mistakes, but try learning from those mistakes and figure out what went wrong and keep a track of it (so you won’t make them again)
- Never let go of an opportunity (participate in the activities as much as you can, would help you grow your personality)
- Learn different things and surely explore different domains
- Ask for help, whenever and wherever required
- Enjoy your work, take breaks and never get stressed up.
For the aspiring PMs, I had created this document and shared with more than 70 PM aspirants through Linkedin. Folks preparing for the PM role in different companies could take help from it.
P.S. I joined Internshala in December 2019 as an intern and was pretty lucky to be a part of Internshala’s Birthday Celebrations! :P
