How these engineering students are cutting out internship hassles for all
Intern Theory is a platform that helps students find the right internship for themselves, with companies, in turn, getting the kind of interns they are looking for.
In December 2012, then 19-year-old Vamil Sangoi, a student of D.J. Sanghvi College in Mumbai, was desperately looking for an internship, but didn’t find anything for over a year. To his surprise, when he spoke to his friends, he realised that this was the case with most of the students. Vamil says,
“I finally got an internship in 2013. But in that period when I was struggling to get an internship, an idea struck me, one to make this entire process hassle-free for everyone. The idea developed gradually, and in a month, I was sure of it. I wanted to change the way people looked at internships.”
What does the platform do?
It was then, in 2014, that Vamil with some of his friends started Intern Theory in Mumbai. The platform works as an online internship portal that bridges the gap between students looking for internship and companies looking for quality interns.
The team reaches out to students from different cities from all over India with internships in more than 40 professional fields, which are posted by premium companies. “We also cater to all the recruitment needs of various big and small companies, screening talented interns across several fields, making the entire process as hassle-free as possible,” says Vamil, who is 23 now.
The idea is to make the process as simple as possible for both students and companies. Students looking for internships register on the website, where they can add all the information regarding preferences, hobbies, and qualifications. This makes it easier for companies that register on the portal and post internships.
The companies later review applications from students interested in their internship vacancies. That is how Intern Theory acts as a via media between students and companies.
“Apart from internships, we also cater to full-time job and recruitment needs of various companies. We will soon be introducing online courses across various fields and topics, which can easily be accessed by students from the website itself,” says Vamil.
Building the team
Being clear that the focus of Intern Theory was on internships, Vamil knew he had to get a trustworthy team in place, and so roped in three of his friends from college–Dhruvi Dharia, Anshini Jhaveri, and Jugal Choksi–as co-founders.
“We were budding engineering students back then, immersed in academics, trying to balance a lot of things at once. So to overcome this, every day, after college, all four of us stayed back and met in the library to meet everyday goals and complete the pending work. We took small steps towards building this idea,” says Vamil.
But they soon realised that they didn’t have the necessary experience. Being young and freshers, people in the market didn’t trust them, and pitching was a hassle. Vamil adds,
“We all knew that in order to execute the idea we had, we needed support. We went to various people before someone trusted our idea. This meant seeking help and learning everything about the business from scratch.”
As of March beginning, the team had onboarded more than one lakh students and 4,500 companies, helped get over 6,500 internships and covered over 25,000 vacancies.
The HR space
Currently, there is a strong and growing market for HR tech in India. Between 2015 and 2016, over $69 million has been pumped into the space. Among the prominent companies in the space are GreyHR, Better Place, Niyo Solutions, and Quikr-acquired Hiree. In the video interviewing space, globally, there are key players like Montage Interview, InterviewStream, Interview Air, Talocity, and Jobvite, to name a few.
Intern Theory, however, focuses on being a one-stop solution for all internship-related matters. Vamil believes that the internship market is unorganised, and they plan to leverage technology to make the application and hiring process faster and hassle-free for students and companies.
“We want to reach out to as many students as possible, and not just to tell them about the importance of internships, but also to make them experience the same. We aim to use technology for companies, to make the hiring process quick and seamless,” says Vamil.