3 former TalentCorp interns talk about their internship experience
Every year, TalentCorp welcomes selected Malaysian undergraduates to our organisation to undergo their internship stints. These interns are assigned to various departments within TalentCorp, where they are given guidance to learn skills to benefit them in their future careers.
We sat down for a chat with three former TalentCorp interns, and they shared with us on what they’d learned and gained from their internship experience.
Zulaikha Binti Zainal Efendi
Zulaikha is a student at King’s College London in the United Kingdom (UK). This year, she interned with TalentCorp’s Graduate and Emerging Talent (GET) team, and here is what she had to say about her experience:
There were two reasons I decided to go for TalentCorp’s internship opportunity: One is that I’m for empowering youths, and closing the inequality gap among youths regardless of the university they graduated from. Then, I had a good impression of the GET team that I’d be working with based on my internship interview.
I was very lucky with the exposure I received from the internship. On my first week, I got to meet with external representatives from the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC). Later on, I was even allowed to chair a few meetings.
Many people had told me that interns are usually assigned to meaningless work. That was not what I experienced. In fact, on my first day of internship, I was assigned as the Project Manager for SBP 2020.
I was excited, but also nervous about leading the events! Fortunately, my colleagues were very supportive—they were always willing to help me out when I wasn’t sure about something. They also made me feel very much a part of the team.
TalentCorp taught me that it matters who you work with, and I found the best people there. This made me realise that in the future, when I am job hunting, I’ll definitely pay attention to the company culture and the type of people that I’d be working with.
Anis Sabirin Binti Abdul Hakim
Anis, who studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States of America (USA), was an intern for the GET team this year. Here is her story:
I found out about the internship opportunity at TalentCorp through iCUBE International’s Career Rush programme, which aims to connect students abroad with the best internship and graduate opportunities in Malaysia. The job description mentioned project management and student engagement, and I had prior experience in both.
I was initially worried about fitting in with the working culture in Malaysia. The only internship experience I had was with my university in America, and that had quite a flexible atmosphere. That was why I was pleasantly surprised by the horizontal nature of TalentCorp, in which we could express our opinions and pitch our ideas, even if we were only interns.
I got to brainstorm with my colleagues to refine my promotional ideas for the #KisahSiswa, an initiative launched in May 2020 to support young Malaysians with their career planning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our turnaround time from ideation to implementation was just one week! Through this experience, I learned to be accountable for my work, and be mindful about the organisation’s branding.
Interning with TalentCorp allowed me to evaluate my own employability, as I got to network with experienced recruiters.
Chloe is a student at the University of Nottingham Malaysia. She was a returning intern—in 2018 she was with the GET team, and in 2019, she interned with TalentCorp for the second time with the Communications team. She shared her experience with us:
My first time interning with TalentCorp was back in 2018 with the GET team prior to starting my tertiary studies. The following year, I returned to intern with the Communications department, which allowed me to have a wider insight of the organisation’s ‘support system’. I had a better understanding of the work the team is assigned to and the roles they play to keep the organisation’s corporate branding ‘alive’.
Many asked me why I opted to return to TalentCorp for my second internship. “Don’t you get bored?” they asked. “What do you even need to do there anymore?”
Continuing to intern with TalentCorp allowed me to refine the existing knowledge I got before. For example, I got to develop my content creation skills through handling the company’s social media accounts. Most people would think social media is easy, but it’s not! By the end of the day, nothing beats the sense of ownership I got from my content getting positively acknowledged, or when I received that one piece of constructive criticism to encourage me further.
Thank you to all our interns – past and present for choosing to spend your internship period with us.
To find out more about TalentCorp’s internship opportunities, drop us an e-mail at recruitment@talentcorp.com.my.
