Create an interactive and intern friendly work environment – WeekendR

“We look for attributes like passion, zeal and belief in the ideology of WeekendR very closely in the people we recruit.”, says Vibhor, CEO at WeekendR, while talking about the attributes he looks for in a prospective intern.  WeekendR team comprises a good number of interns, and these interns play a significant role in the company’s growth.  Read Vibhor’s experience of running an internship programme at WeekendR.

1.  What is your philosophy of having an internship programme at WeekendR?

Ans: Weekendr, being a venture in education space, thrives upon the energy, passion and insights that our interns contribute very strongly. Also, our interns, being students themselves, help us get the pulse of the youth, our target audience, and engage with them very closely.

2. Have you ever done any important project in which interns played a critical role? Please elaborate.

Ans: Our team comprises largely of interns, and they all play a very significant role in different verticals. Each of them is a primary stakeholder of a vertical of operation and carries out the whole execution cycle in the same. It’s a process of constant learning and evolving, and now they have started playing roles of being the creators as well as executors of many of our recent engagements. ‘Empower – The Entrepreneurship Workshop’, an event, is a good example in which our interns played a significant role.

3. While hiring interns, what are the skills/attributes that you look for in a candidate?

Ans: Passion and zeal to work, and belief in the ideology of WeekendR, are what we primarily try to measure in all our applicants. Having a relevant skill-set is always a plus. But we do not make it a constraint and strongly emphasize on building mutual capabilities within our team by collaborating and peer-to-peer learning.

4. Have you ever made mistakes while hiring and ended up hiring totally wrong candidate(s)? What were those mistakes? And in your opinion, what are the common pain points of intern hiring?

Ans: As mentioned above, we look for attributes like passion, zeal and belief very closely in the people we recruit. We also try and understand their goals, motivations and everyday cycle to see how and in which vertical of operations they can best contribute. We have been lucky to have excellent contributors till date who have all added values in their terms to the organisation. The minimum duration we allow stands at not less than a month so as one can learn and contribute in a substantial way. A natural pain-point or rather challenge can be, to align daily operations accommodating their schedules and breaks like exams etc. A planned approach and resource management can help reduce dependency and negate the offset.

5. A message that would you like give to the companies/start-ups running internship programmes?

Ans: Create work environment that is more interactive and intern friendly. Assign tasks that can be challenging for the interns and growth worthy for your enterprise. Hire interns not only on the basis of their high CGPA but on the basis of their creativity, enthusiasm and dedication towards their work. Trust and belief play a key role in creating an effective and beneficial relationship.

6. What is your message to students who are looking for internships?

Ans: There is a lot more to you than you have always thought of in the siloes of our education framework and the way society orients our thoughts. Utilize these plethora of opportunities which the Indian entrepreneurial community has to offer, to know what you love doing and what you are best at, and converge them to one. That becomes the best job for you- a job which you can do successfully for years to come. Also, imbibe and build upon attributes like perseverance, passion, sincerity and structured thinking.

If you’re an employer and want to share your experience of running an internship programme, or want to hire interns for your own organization, drop a line at shadab@internshala.com. We’d love to hear from you.

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