Adventure of Intern Seeking

January 7, 2019

New year is coming and I should get some intern job to fulfill my internship score because it was mandatory if I wanted to graduate. Actually I take the internship a semester earlier so that I don’t have to bother with that stuff later when I start the undergraduate thesis (well this didn’t happen tho).

I told my father that I would like to find an internship job but he was too meddling with it. He forced me to meet one of his friends that was working in a project-based agency and also his own office. Both of the offers were actually not my interest but at that time, I was so desperate because I was sure I failed on Shopee since they didn’t contact me or Rifqy and Raihan anymore. I also tried to apply for some intern jobs via LinkedIn, Tech in Asia, and Glints but there wasn’t any hope. That’s why I accepted my father’s offers.

The first one was the project-based agency. I won’t say the name of the company. I met my father’s friend which might be the owner of the agency when I went to the Christmas devotion in my parents’ church. His friend accepted me if I wanted to be an intern and he said that I could be positioned in the web management. After getting his contact number I chatted with him via Whatsapp and then on January 2, I went to the office of the agency company. I didn’t meet my father’s friend but I was instructed to do some programming and IQ look alike tests. I kinda messed up with the programming test because I was tired writing the whole codes using a pen. Ah yes I forgot to say, in the beginning I was asked a lot of information like the name of my parents and my siblings and what they do etc. Dude, that’s too much for an application! After finishing the tests, I was interviewed but thanks to the experience in Shopee I knew how to handle the interview session so it didn’t look so hard. Finally, after doing those things I went back home using public car (angkot). Because I was blind of directions, I lost too far in my way home but fortunately I was saved because my father picked me up.

The next day, I was going for another interview session. This time it wasn’t offered by my father but I got it by myself. I forgot how I found this startup but I just randomly applied and then several days ago, the owner of the startup contacted me via Whatsapp to schedule the interview session. I went to the office but I was shocked because the office was just a regular house! The house wasn’t as big as I thought too so when I went there, I was kinda confused to find the exact location of the office. Luckily, there were some other applicants who went there for interview session too so I followed them. For this startup, I applied as an UI/UX design intern like I really want. I just had to be interviewed although the interviewers were too many. There were three people interviewed me! Luckily I managed to pass the interview session and the owner, which was one of the interviewers, said that I could come the next Monday if I wanted. After that I went back home using Gojek service again like how I got here before. I chose Gojek because the office location was not far from my home, not like the first company that I went on the previous day.

Again, the next day, I was going for the interview session in my father’s office so I went there and would go back home again with my father. At that time, my father was taking a holiday so he could freely take and pick me up but he said I shouldn’t say that when I was interviewed in his office. That’s why I was brought to the point that let me had to walk for a while to get to the office. My father worked in a private bank (bank swasta) and I was offered to be a programmer. As I expected from a bank which didn’t give a damn fuck about IT. I meant, IT was everywhere even a bank should have IT staffs but that’s not what I wanted to do. By the way, before going to the interview session, I got the head of IT department from my father and we chatted via Whatsapp. This day, I was invited to his room and I didn’t get interviewed but he directly asked me to do a project by myself. He only asked me if I had ever used Java and I said yes for Android apps. But he said that because he wanted me to make a desktop app. He said that it shouldn’t be hard to learn a bit and he also said that actually this project could be done for two weeks by his staffs but he was okay if I could do this for two months. I didn’t blame him. He was already being too nice to me and I also didn’t know what to say since he already had something to offer to me. I didn’t say that I object this but I said that I would contact him again if I chose to work on that project.

After that, I said that I put this offer on the first place to my dad so that he could be happy. I actually said this because I didn’t know which offer that I preferred. I could choose the startup but the allowance was too small. When I asked about what would I do there, they said that I could watch and learn. Meh, that sounded they didn’t want interns bothering their work. The agency and my father’s office offered the same amount of the allowance so I picked my father’s office because I didn’t have to worry about being lost and I could save my money by going to the office and back home with my father.

Before that day, I got an e-mail that someone contacted me in Kalibrr. I kinda forgot about Kalibrr since I made the account just for applying the Gojek special class. The man who contacted me was from Kargo Technologies and his name was Mr. Mario. He said that he was interested in my profile and asked me if I wanted to be an UI/UX designer. He said everything in English, which was the reason it made me kinda interested. He didn’t know that I was still a college student. I didn’t want to refuse but I asked him if he’s okay with an intern and he said it was okay. It seemed like the company needed the UI/UX designer as fast as possible but yeah I would like to try even though I didn’t like the company field which was logistics. What was that? A logistic startup? It was too manly.

We moved the conversation from Kalibrr to Whatsapp and he arranged the interview session on Monday since I had another interview session on Friday (my father’s office). Kargo’s office was in WeWork Revenue Tower and it was really far from my home, even more than the office of my father’s friend. I spent too much on Gojek service but I really didn’t have any choice because I was bad at directions even though my father had already told me to use Transjakarta buses. The office was similar with Shopee and also the office of my father’s friend. The building was not for one office but a lot of offices from different companies were there. Because this was not my first time so I knew what to do when I was in the lobby. Yeah, giving my ID card.

I met Mr. Mario on the 25th floor and then I was escorted to the 23rd floor which was the exact location of Kargo office. Well I actually didn’t understand why he asked me to go to the 25th floor. Maybe he wanted to do the interview session in the guest room (the 25th floor was a guest room for WeWork offices and WeWork was a co-working spaces from the 19th floor to the 27th floor so Kargo was one of the offices that used WeWork service) but unfortunately there wasn’t any room left. In the Kargo office, I was brought to a meeting room and met Rangga, which was a product manager. He talked too fast but somehow I understood with everything he said. After interviewing me about my previous design projects, he directly told me what would I do as a UI/UX designer intern. He also let me asked about Kargo and he answered everything passionately.

It was a fun interview experience but at the same time it was very intimidating. I wasn’t brave enough to ask about the allowance. So I asked about that when I was in the way back home to Mr. Mario. At first, the allowance that he offered was the same amount like the two companies that were offered by my father. But at night when I was already at home, Mr. Mario contacted me and he raised the allowance into… I won’t tell haha. The allowance was more than enough for me so in the end I chose Kargo because I could be an UI/UX designer in a startup like I wanted and the allowance made me happy although I should learn how to use Transjakarta buses if I wanted to survive.

That’s my adventure of intern seeking. I finally achieved my first step to make my dreams come true! By the way, the interview sessions were on January 2-4 (Wed-Fri) and January 7 (Monday). I made this post today because this was the last day of my adventure.

You may ask, what happened with the other offers? I just said thanks and politely rejected the offers but at the same time I didn't want them to forget me so I wished I could still be accepted if I applied again. I was actually a bit selfish by saying that but I didn't want to hurt them.