My Transformative Journey – The Microsoft Internship
It was my first instance of going into a technology & IT company. Being a production engineer, I have worked all my life at a manufacturing setup of a consumer goods company. I have experienced the working culture & behavioural dynamics very closely. To get out of my comfort zone & take up never before challenges, I embarked on the internship at Microsoft & now, looking back at my 11 weeks of internship, I realize that it was a surprisingly very smooth transition. After introspecting, I have come to the conclusion that 03 factors were primary contributors for this transition – Culture, People & the Internship program structure.
Culture:
The culture starts with the CEO Satya Nadella & his visionary leadership which has crafted the most deserving mission statement for Microsoft:
To empower every person and organisation on this planet to achieve more!
At first, I was not much thinking about the mission, but by the end of my 1st week, I had realized that it exists & it exists strongly across the company and its employees. I attended a customer solutions awareness session for an Oil & gas giant in Malaysia. It was attended by all the CXOs & I was awestruck to see how much immersed the customer was into Microsoft solutions & wanted us to come on board & assist their organisation in being more productive, collaborative & secure. In short, it was what empowering meant! Microsoft not only solves a customer’s problems but also helps the customer to use the solution effectively so as to achieve more than just problem-solving. From an employee’s POV, I realized how much I was empowered to take charge & transform the customer’s journey into the digital drive.
People:
One striking feature is the open, welcoming & caring nature of people. I couldn’t have felt such pride in being an intern if I would have interned with any other company. The people cared about my onboarding, getting accustomed to offices, enquired about my experience as well as guided me with the product knowledge. All of this just for an Intern, who’s gonna be with you for only 3 months. Moreover, it was not just my work colleagues but the Senior Leadership Team as well. We, the interns, approached all the SLTs for a candid coffee chat & all of them readily accepted. We got the opportunity to interact with country MD, Marketing head, Public Sector head, Enterprise commercial head as well as Channel Partner head to discover their journey into Microsoft, their inspirations & career discovery, rapid-fire and lastly advice to the interns. I am glad to express that all of them unanimously agreed on having a Growth Mindset, taking risks, being curious learner & being humble.
The Internship Program:
Now I know how a well-planned & perfect program looks like! My internship started with onboarding materials to give you a flavour of the culture & working style of Microsoft along with a mentor-colleague who would be your buddy to go for. Then came the profile related skills training exposing me to Microsoft sales cycle as well as customer visits. Finally, empowering me - an intern, with strategizing the growth strategy at a customer account gave me that necessary extra boost to immerse myself completely into this company & project. Along with it, I completed 6 short term projects giving me a 360° exposure to Microsoft working as well as how the organisation empowers me to have the ownership & have that sense of pride. Not to mention, the all paid one week visit to Sydney, Australia for Intern Learning Week will always be a special part of this Internship enabling me to bond with interns across APAC & realise their journeys. Though I was not able to attend it physically, Microsoft UR team ensured all the sessions to be live-streamed just for me.
Lastly, I am indebted to my dynamic & humble manager @Millie Yong, the ever hard-working University Recruitment team for finding the best talent in APAC & the strong the intern community to always be a special part of this internship journey.
Going forward into my professional career, I will look at 03 key factors into my future employer:
1. Empowering Culture
2. Motivated & Customer Obsessed People
3. The vision of Mobile First, Cloud First
