Time to be career ready — Transition from College to Corporate
Tags: Mentor, Internships, Career Advice, Technology, Careers

Learn2Intern.com — Webinar Series 1

Date: 28th Nov, Sat 7PM

Webinar video recording here. Questions asked during the webinar:

Q1. How to get an internship?

Aim for a role & build your skills around it — by doing courses, watching youtube videos, reading articles, etc

Approach your seniors from college or get referrals from your contacts

Check and apply on internshala, linkedIn

Keep learning & keep moving forward

Q2. How to continuously learn and upskill myself?

Upskilling is much easier these days in the technologically connected world. You can do the following:

Watch free youtube videos on the topic you want to learn

Explore articles on google — to learn about recent developments

Signup for various technology, business & startup newsletters

Talk to college seniors or friends from the industry

Participate in competitions, hackathon or projects

Do few certificates, courses or internships

Find a Mentor (if possible)

Q3. I have a low paying job. How can I move forward? I have no internship experience.

Having a job is a blessing! Good that you have a job — keep working hard on your job. Try to learn skills from peers and on your own

Learn online on youtube

Read a lot; search articles on google

Subscribe newsletters from to great tech websites or business publications such as TechCrunch, Crunchbase, Bloomberg business, Forbes tech, Venture Beat, etc

Do a few certificates & courses

Q4. I am an MCA student. There’s so many coding languages to learn. But I don’t know what to take up. How do I find the right internship?

Start with any Language — learn the basics well (such as OOPS, data structures)

If you want to enter the field of Machine Learning/AI — you may start with Python.

Other hot languages in the market are Java, Nodejs, ReactJs, GoLang.

Note: Although, that doesn’t bound you if you are proficient in any other language.

How do I find the right internship — Refer Q1

Q5. Does competitive programming play an important role for placements?

Yes, if you are looking to take a role as a developer. For fresher, interviewers also look for strong analytical/aptitude skills.

Having some basic knowledge of OS & DBMS won’t harm and would help you in creating a good all round impression..

Q6. I want to make a career as a ‘backend engineer’. How do I achieve that?

Learn backend languages such as JAVA, node.js or any other Coding language which strictly follows OOPS concept.

Learn about cloud infrastructure, REST APIs

Increase your knowledge about databases; would be really helpful to understand the whole ecosystem

Q7. What if I learn some coding language and it becomes irrelevant? How many languages do I learn?

Start with ‘any language’ & learn the ‘basics’ well.

Coding Languages do become outdated in some time.

Basic concepts remain the same across languages.

It is easier to pick new languages if you know any one language pretty well.

Note: If you want to enter the field of Machine Learning/AI — you may start with ‘Python’.

Q8. If I am working on Java tech in one company but I want to switch into another company as a data engineer, Can I make that switch?

If you want one word answer, then it’s “YES”. To be more descriptive, it’s easier to switch careers in the beginning i.e initial 3–4 years from any field to any other field. With more experience, companies may start to look for specialization.

But ‘fields’ are not classified according to language and the above question doesn’t bring out a true differentiation since data engineers could primarily be doing code in JAVA only.

One would rather classify fields in following manner:-

Backend Engineer — Java/Node/C++/PHP, RDBMS, NOSQL, Cloud

Frontend Engineer — ReactJs etc

Apps Developer (Android/IOS) — Java, Kotlin, Swift

AI/ML engineer — Python etc

Data Scientist — Python and any other language like JAVA etc

Q9. What is the best resource to learn data structures and algorithms?

I would rather answer this in straightforward manner

LeetCode/Hackerrank for running code practice

GeeksforGeeks for detailed understanding of DS

Get good idea about memory/time complexity

Practice to write actual code rather than pseudo code

Q10. I know that it is important to find my interest. But how do I find my interest?

It is very unlikely that you’ll find your area of interest immediately.

One of the best ways to find your interest is by working in diverse areas.

For this you may have to take up internship projects to get a flavour of the kind of work that the profession entails.

Q11. Where do I find real world problems? Where do I get industry projects?

Real problems can be found during internships or corporate projects or working with a business mindset. Then you look anywhere & you will find them! For eg.

Look at your college; what are the problems that college is facing?

Low student intake

No/Less internships

Less recruiters visiting campus

Students not happy with curriculum or course delivery

No practical experience

Note: You can try Dare2compete for corporate competitions, quizzes and hackathons

Q12. Will companies hire me for an internship as a fresher?

Ofcourse, just prove your worth. Know about the company & the role. Do some courses & certificates. Work hard to get that internship/or the job

Q13. What are the different job roles for a mechanical engineer? What are the different opportunities available in the industry? How do I avail them?

There is a wide variety of roles offered to Mechanical Engineers in diverse domains including R&D, Manufacturing, Design, Analysis, Production, Testing and Maintenance.

Major recruiting sectors are Automobile, Power Plants, Steel, Oil & Gas, Petroleum, Textiles, Aerospace, Shipping among others.

Keep actively looking for opportunities through LinkedIn and other job portals (naukri, monster, internshala, etc).

To boost your chances of getting selected, build your profile (resume) by doing projects and internships.

Q14. How to distinguish between fraudulent and good internships?For eg. Some companies exploit students — they ask for a deposit amount, do not pay for internships or will give too much work to do. What to do?

Does not matter if it’s an unheard startup or an established company. Here are few signals to identify good vs bad:

Good signs:

Putting in effort to select candidates

Having a defined role

Interviewer/Company has a LinkedIn or Internet presence

Fraudulent signs:

Asking for security deposit or money upfront

No Internet presence of the executives/company

No defined short term & long term goals. You can ask for company’s short term (1 year) & long term (5 year) plan

Hiding things during conversations

Company giving ‘too much work on internships’ is OK. At this stage of your career, aim should be to learn as much as possible by getting practical experience. Paid/UnPaid — does not matter. Small money from internships will not matter in the long term. Ask the right questions & put your best effort to learn & deliver on the internship.

Q15. Do startups/internships expect us to be good at technology for the profile they are hiring or will they give a chance to learn and deliver?

In general, companies only look at your aptitude, attitude and your interest towards working in the domain. They will not expect you to be an expert with the technology/ subject.

For validating your interest to the interviewer, it is advisable that you do a course or project or use open source material available to build at least a basic level knowledge in the technology.

Thanks for attending! Best of luck…To register for our next webinar click here

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