What I learnt during my internship at AB InBev -By Harshita Srivastava from SIBM Pune

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Getting hired by the world’s best beer brewing company was a dream come true. I was hired for the summer internship program at AB InBev during my summer placements and here is an anecdote of my journey.

During the process, the organization explained the 10 values with which they always relate with. But the organization’s rich values were displayed during the testing times like COVID 19 pandemic. On one hand, LinkedIn was full of posts with companies revoking their summer internship offers, and on the other hand, there were companies that reduced the stipend that they offered to the students.

During such dark times keeping their commitment, Anheuser-Busch InBev was one amongst the few of the organizations, which pro-actively aligned themselves according to the situation and onboarded their summer interns. This was the first time for the company to onboard their interns virtually. But going by their value of accepting the challenge, the People Team and all the leaders of the organization came together to provide the best 2 months of experience to all of us.

A perfect induction amidst the chaos

The first day of my internship at AB InBev started with a lot of engaging activities to ensure that we all know each other before starting our journeys. These fun activities were then followed by various leadership sessions. These sessions were insightful as we got an opportunity to know about various verticals of the organization and helped us understand more about the company, its culture, values, and its goals. One thing that got stuck with me was that we were asked to work in a way that we leave our legacies behind when we complete our 2-month journey. This really motivated me to deliver my best in all the projects that I was a part of. We also had sessions with our project team, our mentors, and guides to know more about them and how things can shape in the coming months.

Once the internship kick-started, we used to have weekly connections with the People Team and all the fellow interns. They organized a number of engaging activities that ensured that we did not miss out on the experience that we could have had if we were physically working in the organization. On social media handles, the organization left no stone unturned in surprising all its interns. All the interns were welcomed by the organization with various videos along with individual posts for all the interns.

The guiding light of my internship

The key skills required to work virtually are communication skills and a collaborative attitude. My project included communication with various stakeholders. I realized within a few days, that without good communication skills it will be difficult for me to work in the virtual setup as I was entirely new in the organization. In this, my mentor and guide showed me the way in the initial phase and made me understand the functionality of the projects and how exactly things go forward. This really helped me in my projects, and I gained a lot of knowledge. AB InBev believes that no one should stop learning. And as a result, we got access to various learning platforms and had multiple training sessions. This really caught my eye because the organization ensures that if it grows, its people would also grow along the way.

The team also ensured that we get constant support from our guides and mentors. We had at least 3 weekly reviews with our guides, mentors, and tower head. This made sure that we do not lose track of the projects and work towards giving the best results. It helped us to discuss and resolve the challenges in the project. All the leaders, managers were open to any channel of communication and ensured that all our queries and doubts were fixed.

#ChallengeAccepted

In this 2 months journey, I met an amazing group of people, who all worked for a common goal. It was quite a journey with a lot of learnings along the way. The company always beliefs in challenging the people and getting the best result. My guide and mentor brought up a lot of challenging tasks for me. Accepting the challenges and working towards them made me identify myself as a resilient person. I identified the best of me in these 2 months' journey. And surely #ChallengeAccepted will be my key takeaway from my summer internship experience with AB InBev.