Internship with ExxonMobil!
By: Ananya Chatterjee
Tags: Internships, Nit Trichy, First Post, Exxonmobil

Hello reader! I am Ananya Chatterjee. Last year, precisely around this time, I was preparing my application for MITACS when I thought why not apply for ExxonMobil BTC (Bangalore Technology Centre), as the Job Description stated a core role, where my interest lies. That’s when this journey started…

In this write-up, I’ll describe the hiring process and my experience during the internship.

For interns, we had three rounds.

Resume Selection Group Discussion Personal Interview (Technical + HR)

Resume Selection:

There is no hard rule for resume shortlisting. If you have a fair CGPA, genuine internship experiences, few extra-curricular with notable positions of responsibility, you’re good to go. Don’t mind bragging about yourself a little in your resume, but it has to be 100% genuine. Don’t put unfamiliar acronyms in past experiences. Since you’ll be applying for a technical role, make sure the projects and technical internships you have done in the past are detailed and documented well; preferably, use bullets while writing.

Group Discussion:

After the Company Presentation in the morning around 7 AM, GD started from 8. Selected third years from mechanical, chemical branches were jumbled to make groups of 12. Make sure you are in formals, in a fairly lit area with good internet. Be ready with a backup internet source and extra device in case of emergency. Our group was given the topic “Social Media Helping Our Society by Improving Our Productivity”. After a small introduction, we were allotted around 30 minutes to discuss the matter. The GD was remarkable, and all had great points to add. In such time, try to stand out. When our discussion went too negative, I tried bringing it back to the main topic at hand and added few positives. We all were individually asked to conclude the GD within 30 seconds each.

Personal Interview:

PI shortlist was out around 2 PM, and with 3 hours in hand to prepare, I went through my favourite two subjects of chemical engineering: Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics.

At the start of the interview, I was asked to introduce myself (more extended introduction than GD). After that, they showed much interest in my resume. For 15 minutes or more, the questions were all about my resume, and I explained everything in detail.

Next, they asked me about my favourite chemical engineering subjects. As I was not confident with anything (because 3 hours of preparation was not enough), I said that I liked most of the topics, Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer, Chemistry, Chemical Technology and Process Calculation. I got few questions from all the subjects. They were solely interested in checking my concepts rather than the wordings for a particular definition or law. The questions I could not answer, I politely acknowledged, “Sorry, I cannot exactly recollect that at this moment”.

Now, I had behavioural questions. For folks familiar with our college teams/clubs induction, it will be a piece of cake. One tip, have examples ready with all the qualities you mention, be it strength or weakness. As it was my first company interview, I was nervous, but the panel of five was very welcoming and made me feel comfortable. Overall, I was satisfied with my interview. It was an excellent learning experience.

Takeaways for PIs: Know your strengths and weaknesses, choose a few core subjects you are confident about and brush up well. Go over your resume well. You should be able to justify everything you have mentioned in your resume. It is alright NOT to KNOW everything. The interviewers know that. They essentially look for people who can figure out and learn on the go, so have an open mind and do not hesitate to ask questions and clarifications for anything.

On 1st September, around 10 PM, I got a message, “ExxonMobil selects Ananya Chatterjee.” 😊

Experience as an Intern:

I joined as a cost engineering intern. My basic role was to estimate costs for refinery projects and improve methods of estimation.

ExxonMobil is a huge corporation. Within EM, there are many parts. I was under Global Projects — Bangalore Technology Centre, where mainly global project engineering work happens. It was the first time BTC was hiring interns, so there was a lot of freedom, and they were open to suggestions always. Everyone was super approachable, there was no hierarchy, no calling sir/ma’am, and I just loved the company culture. I was encouraged to take breaks whenever needed. During weekends, I was instructed not to do any work. Besides work meetings, there were sessions by professional psychologists on handling uncertainties, fun meetings where advisors, supervisors were grouped with interns for gaming events and many more.

Fun session with fellow interns

I was assigned one buddy, two official mentors, one supervisor and fortunately an unofficial buddy, an alumni friend from NITT working in the very similar role. My job was not hectic at all; it was evenly distributed. For me, the internship was for nine weeks, and work was scheduled during weekdays, 1:30 PM — 10:30 PM. After the first few weeks of training and intense doubt clearing sessions, I worked on few estimations and benchmarking projects and had to present everything in front of the leadership team (all the managers and supervisors) at the end. It was more about learning the oil and gas business, project engineering, company workings, and networking rather than contributing majorly.

As a cost and schedule engineer, I needed to learn about Projects in general and indeed needed my chemical engineering knowledge. Many have a wrong idea about working in core or management; even I previously thought in black and white. But, in most of the roles in Project Engineering, you have to know project management along with core engineering to be efficient enough. Needless to say, there is a lot more than just core/management. Various technical skills you have to learn now and then to take up new projects. From my networking experience, I could see that profiles are vastly interdisciplinary unless it is pure research and development. In ExxonMobil, switching roles is very common, and I could see supervisors who have worked across multiple functions and have a fantastic grasp of the company’s work.

At the end of 9 weeks, I was offered PPO, and I eagerly look forward to working with ExxonMobil BTC. :)

I hope this helps.

Good luck with your internship journey, and I hope to see you writing such an article next year.

With love,

- Ananya Chatterjee

B.Tech, Final Year Chemical Engineering (2018–2022)

National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli