# FORESIGHT(2021): Summer Internship at American Express | Rishi Jain

Student Welfare Group, IIT Kharagpur
Follow
--
Listen
Share
Brief Introduction
Hello to everyone reading this. I am Rishi Jain, a final year undergrad from the Industrial Engineering dept, pursuing its B.tech course. I did my summer internship at American Express as an analyst in the SPG, which basically is an in-house strategy consulting team, part of the global AmEx strategy team.
Selection Procedure
AmEx generally comes on day1 for its intern as well as placement selections.
For the intern selection procedure, there happens to be an online test, followed by 2 rounds of interviews after shortlisting based on the test scores and CV screening.
Online Test
The test comprises 3 sections
The aptitude ques are of medium difficulty, but given a short time, it’s a challenging exercise to solve even 15+ ques if you are not in practice.
Then comes the ML section — 10 basic questions in 10–15 mins; I will just keep it short, stating them as “fairly simple”
The last section happens to be a business problem. Here, they had a unique way of representing the case, let’s say, by giving you 50 chits of info and allowing you to open up only 40 of them, with each chit labeled what kind of information it contains. So you need to understand what information you need to arrive at a decision for the given case (MCQ-based).
Overall, the level of difficulty lies between medium to hard.
Interviews
First-round (CV grilling + knowledge check) — Every interview starts with an introduction, which should be precise and crisp from our end. I was grilled about my CV and ML/DL knowledge in the first interview. It went pretty well as I was able to defend all elements of CV except some questions around DL and python. One piece of advice for fellow peeps — It’s okay if you don’t know the answer to a question asked; you must not waste any time or be silent during the interview. Politely inform the interviewer that you are not aware of the topic currently and move on.
The second round (Case + HR) of the interview was basically a case round followed by a general discussion and cultural-fit conversation. I was asked a case on optimization as I had a couple of projects around it. In my case specifically, I had to formulate the problem into an optimization framework, define the required data points, constraints and finally cover some possible outcomes. They just give you any business problem/scenario, and you are supposed to drive the conversation, ask questions and arrive at a conclusion. I was fortunate that I got asked a case only around my field of expertise.
There is no defined way to learn data science or whatever you might call this field; one should try to explore according to interests without skipping any basics. I am mentioning very few topics to learn in the vast AI frame, with one particular resource of my choice.
Following things go into the prep of ML profiles (in order) -
Analytics can go hand-in-hand while studying ML, and one might switch towards core analytics or proceed towards deep learning.
One should explore the following topics to make their analytics muscle strong (Practice-based stuff) -
Project Details
Well, the project I did is subject to implementation and potential impact on decisions after further work, so I can’t really disclose my full project details.
Being a part of the strategy consulting team, I was lucky to have an exciting project around how marketplaces (say Amazon) impacts financial institutions (basically AmEx), with an attempt to identify mitigation strategies for the associated risk.
It was a fantastic open-ended project with a large scope, but one must know that there is a limitation of data when it comes to any competitive industry.
WFH experience (I would say communication is the key for a fruitful WFH exp)
In my opinion, growth is capped working from home when compared to working in any corporate office/environment.
But obviously, everything has its pros/cons, here is what I felt -
Cons
Pros
Impact of Covid on internship selections (Situation is identical for each one of us, so don’t let any circumstance impact your chances/performance at the end)
There ain’t going to be as such an impact, the companies are considerably ready and stable for the situation, and with students able to save a lot of time, they can also go for the enormous world of off-campus opportunities and diverse domains.
I don’t see any difficulties coming up to grab an opportunity (on or off campus). There is definitely a hustle, but that helps us remain competitive and learn new skills, pushing every day.
Ideal student match for Amex strategy role
As the team name suggests (Amex strategy), they offer a strategy consultant kind of role, which involves working with a world-class team of analysts and managers responsible for making strategies, directly impacting where the corporation will stand incoming 3–5 years. This opportunity really polishes your pitches, communication, the way you present your work, and refine the way you think about strategies.
One could get extreme exposure to analytics and insights, helping them shape their ideation and implementation.
Advice for students sitting this year
(CDC intern won’t define your career)
I want every student to know that bagging a CDC internship (at any day) is good, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t get it through CDC. There is a large sea of opportunities waiting to be exploited off-campus, where you might learn, even more, working under your suitable role. Campus selections don’t offer that much diversity of profiles (for internships only), which one could explore off-campus.
And one internship can be a plus point for you, but it can’t define your career.
(Skill development is the key — whatever your goal might be)
Apart from this, I would recommend every fellow kgpian to keep working hard on their skills, not only coding/CP or CDC prep stuff (you must do that), but simultaneously explore new domains, fields you like, or anything that creates a spark of interest amongst you.
All The Best !