What I learned during my internship at Hexagon AB -By Vishal Raina from SIOM Nashik

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Amid the ongoing pandemic, internships are a ray of hope in making the lockdown productive for every B-School student. For me, the internship at Hexagon AB is a learning experience. The firm is known as a world leader in sensor, software, and autonomy solutions.

My internship at Hexagon AB (India Office) commenced a month back amidst the uncertainty about the pandemic. The mode of the internship was a concern at the beginning with the onset of such unprecedented times. But the Management team at Hexagon was pro-active in handling the situation and started the internship virtually. Thanks to the digital focus of Hexagon AB as a group, the experience was extremely smooth right from the onboarding process to this day.

The selection procedure

Being a part of the General Management cohort, the process included 2 steps:

1. CV shortlisting
2. Personal interview

The interview was mostly based on my background and what impact could I bring to the firm, if given an opportunity.

Virtual internship protocols

During the coronavirus pandemic, working virtually is the only resort. The benefit of a virtual internship comes from the assurance of being safe at home and that we are all with our families during these scary times. However, I believe that being on-premise would have helped build better relationships and I could have learned more from conversations over coffee with senior leadership.

Providing a seamless experience along with maintaining data confidentiality was the biggest challenge that was faced by most of the firms this internship season. Most of it was sorted when we received our virtual desktops with the necessary applications pre-installed. The support from the IT team was commendable in this aspect. We were allowed to interact with top-level executives. With the help of Whatsapp groups and calls were able to stay connected with fellow interns.

Building professional relationships in times of Coronavirus

As the scope of the project was already adjusted by the Hexagon team to suit a work from home scenario, it was easier to adapt to this new way of working. I received tons of help from all the stakeholders of the project, especially from my manager, Dinesh Kumar. However, I wouldn’t deny the fact that building a more personal connection would have been better if we had an in-person interaction.

Although people had tight schedules with numerous calls throughout the day, they made sure that my project is not stuck, and that I remained productive for the entire duration of the internship. Regular follow up by Aditya Singh, Siddhartha Moondra from the HR team made sure that I was on the right track and didn’t face any issue with the progress of my project.

There were many smaller projects where my manager provided me with an opportunity to learn and deliver apart from the core deliverables of my project. I remember the day when I took one such project from scratch to the final stage of implementation. The joy when the team came back to me saying that the new system will make their lives simpler was incredible and brought an air of positivity and freshness in these clouded times.

My internship at Hexagon AB is the closest to the best internship experience I could get in these challenging times.