We all know the importance of internships; they are a critical part of a student’s early career development.
At Carousell, we’re keen to give our interns the best possible experience to learn in a fast-paced, technology-driven environment.
Working in the technology industry is a whole different ball game from that of multinational corporations, with fewer standard processes and room to experiment.
At Carousell, we’ve received a fair amount of interest from students seeking internship positions with us and have been lucky to have some great ones join us over the years.
Employee development is a key pillar for Carousell, because we believe engaged and motivated employees are simply better employees all-round.
Introducing: The Intern Book
Internships are only as valuable as what you put into it, and we want to ensure that our interns gain something beneficial from the 3-6 months they spend with us.
Despite it’s unassuming nature, our interns are invited to reflect and recap their journey in the Intern Book, as well as leave some advice for the next intern to join.
“Be Proactive”
Some of the sage advice contained within:
“Be proactive. Always take initiative in learning. Don’t be shy and take the initiative to approach others for help if you are not sure of anything. There is so many things to learn in a startup, take the initiative and you will definitely gain a lot of new insights and knowledge.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. Don’t underestimate your capabilities. Throughout your months in the company, your responsibilities will increase. Don’t doubt yourself and give it a go and try out different tasks.”
“Your feedback is important. Don’t be afraid to voice out ideas, opinions or ask others wha they think. In a tech startup like Carousell, innovativeness is a key asset. Sometimes you’ll have to think out of the box to come up with solutions.”
As a rapidly growing company, there are so many things to do to achieve the goals set out at Carousell. Interns have the chance to participate alongside their team in addressing issues and executing projects. Many issues that come up will be novel for the team and intern included, and it is a rare chance for interns to be involved in problem-solving process.
Solve problems, Make friends
Besides solving real operational problems, equally important, internships allow students to build their first professional networking relationships. And that’s something many acknowledge and even recommend!
“Try to participate in as many discussions, events, meetings and interest groups as possible. You gain different perspectives and valuable feedback. These are all great ways for you to talk to more people and get to know everyone at Carousell. Trust me you won’t regret it.”
“I’m naturally quite shy, so it took me a month or two to really warm up and talk to people, but I never regretted it and wished I did so earlier! Carousell has so many people with varied interests and backgrounds, which really widens your exposure.”
We pride ourselves for having a flat corporate structure. In the office, there are no cubicles and teams are encouraged to interact and work together on projects.
Interns will quickly come to realise that in the Carousell office, you won’t just report to your team and line manager, you will also get chances to interact with the co-founders on regular basis.
