It’s tough getting a job anyway in this economy. Imagine you are a young student looking to get an assignment in a corporate. It’s tough. For students searching for assignments it can be quite an experience.
Mrunali Pai is a second year student. It has been quite an experience. She said “I started looking for internships. All I had was the knowledge from online courses and ideas. I did keep applying at multiple places before actually getting one. Not having any experience seemed to be the primary reason behind not getting an internship. It’s funny how companies want people with experience but also don’t want to hire people without it. How can we gain ‘experience’ if they aren’t ready to hire us in the first place? And with the onset of the pandemic it is difficult to get internships as we’re mostly expected to work offline despite the current situation.” Shimron Nathan, a media student, said as a fresher, she found it very hard to get an internship or job because most jobs compulsorily need the student to have previous experience. She said “If no company is going to accept a student without any experience then how will they gain any experience at all??? Unless a student has known colleagues in a company it’s nearly impossible to get a job with just your marks. You can have vast knowledge and skills for the field but without experience the HR will just look at it as ‘all bark and no bite’ and then proceed to give you the cold shoulder”. Samuel Fernandes, another student, reiterated the fact that experience was very important. He said ‘’ I was rejected for an internship and it’s getting real hard to find the job you like, well I just refer To some websites, and keep myself updated with what jobs are available for fresher’s, and about the virus I really hope it won’t cause another lockdown because that’s going to be adding to the trouble in finding a job”.
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Clive who works in a studio in Porvorim gave the perspective of the company looking to hire an intern or a full time employee. He said “If I was hiring someone, first I’ll take a look at that individual’s demo reel (A Demo Reel is kind of like a CV, but for artists to show off their art work. It’s mostly a Video where you present your best work first. The length of the reel will mostly be between 1 – 3 minutes long. If I like their work, I’ll call he/she up and speak to them and get to know them. Find out what their passion, eagerness to learn. And finally I’ll give them a test on the position they are applying for to see the quality of work they can do and also the time they take to finish the task”.
Another employee of a company who would help in hiring but was not cleared to speak to the media said it was important to gauge the attitude of the candidate. Knowledge he said could be gained over time. Most of the young students he felt were focused on getting a job but were not sure what they wanted to do and hence could at times be lackadaisical which was a problem at the time of recruitment.
For Shimei Nathan it was quite an experience. She said “For my first job, I worked at a tech support company from January Till April, I had to discontinue because of the virus. My role was HR and Customer Service with an additional role of Sales and it was a full time job. I did attend my college from 8am to 2pm then slept in the day as my shift was from 8pm to 4am since our clients were international from US, UK, Canada and Australia. The job was very convenient and was not affected with the curfews or lockdowns as I had a pass for travel and shifts in timings around the curfews. They recruited me and gave me a 15 day training period which I completed less than 10 days securing my employment with them. Even though I did not have any experience the job was suited to my strengths and helped me acquire professional experience in the field”. However she said getting another job as a student after April was rather tough as everything was online and offices were not open. Most of the fresher’s, she felt, only took up internships to build their portfolio. She took up 2 internships online during the quarantine and summer holidays for college. One was creative writing which I got my certification for and the other was HR recruitment. She felt if one did not have any company experience one could always have personal experience and build up internship experience. One could create a convincing Portfolio and seal it with a strong Interview. She said “If you’ve reached the interview stage, you’re already winning. Work jobs that are compatible with you and will serve your best interests in the future. Take up something that employers will be convinced with even if you don’t have any company experience”.
Everyone is fighting a battle, either with the virus or with a market which is still depressed. Young people looking for internships have to be innovative to stand out.
