This past summer, after his freshman year, my brother interned at one of India’s most esteemed corporate houses. Within the first ten days of the internship, he had fought to get a computer, gone through each text message on his phone, and taken several naps in the library. He was asked the same question daily “you’re an MBA student, right”. To which he had the same response “no, first year undergrad”. He was also told daily “the real work starts tomorrow. Your computer will be here any day now”.
Two weeks into a six week internship, he finally got his computer. He was yet to receive work.
It’s no secret that summer internships for undergrads in India aren’t taken seriously. With limited formal systems in place, it falls to the senior executive in question to determine how best to make use of (or not make use of) an intern. This becomes even tougher in large companies with bureaucratic processes, where it’s easy for interns to fall through the cracks. Internships, enough of the time, are treated as a chore or a favour. Few people use it as an opportunity to make the most of someone’s strengths or interests, which is incredibly unfortunate as there are enough students out there who are sharp, hardworking, and extremely keen to learn. In addition to it being a learning opportunity for interns, there is scope for companies to benefit as well, should they choose to make use of it.
There are, of course, cases where people invest in mentoring interns, putting thought and effort into identifying work for them and ensuring that their time is being spent in a manner that is useful to both the organisation and the intern. Since doing so requires investment and effort on the part of busy executives, such cases remain an exception rather than the norm. More often than not, interns are turned into glorified errand boys, or given close to nothing to do (which can often be worse than having too much to do!). More importantly, these are some of the very first experiences of young people with the professional world, and instead of providing a positive view, interns are left frustrated, bored, or simply indifferent. It’s no wonder that such experiences can turn students off internships, and eventually working, in India, as seems to be the case with my brother.
This, coupled with a rigid and intensely competitive education system, leaves us with no right to complain about the brain drain.
It’s sad how we handle interns, when they provide huge potential to tap into. I truly feel that most of these students want to work hard and learn (there are of course exceptions), and if we give them a chance, we might actually be surprised with what we get. And especially given that companies are increasingly finding themselves hiring interns, they may as well find a way to gain from it. More to the point, there is huge scope to use these internships the way firms in other countries do (and the way we currently treat MBA internships) – allowing them to serve as testing grounds for a subsequent full-time position.
There is a dire need for our system to evolve. Undoubtedly, successful formal internship models exist; Western markets have streamlined and transparent systems to recruit, employ, and (dare I say it) remunerate interns. In so many ways, we blindly ape the West, but in matters where they are doing a better job than us, we remain obstinately stuck in our ways. What is stopping us from putting in place a similar system, especially when we look at the huge talent base we can tap into?
2 thoughts on “The Brain Drain”