{"id":19910,"date":"2018-09-27T17:37:56","date_gmt":"2018-09-27T09:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shopee.sg\/blog\/?p=19910"},"modified":"2018-09-27T17:37:56","modified_gmt":"2018-09-27T09:37:56","slug":"shopee-lifeatshopee-ecommerce-internship-vanessa-tan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shopee.sg\/blog\/shopee-lifeatshopee-ecommerce-internship-vanessa-tan\/","title":{"rendered":"The intern who recruited interns: Thoughts from the bottom of the food chain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Original draft by <\/span>Vanessa Tan<\/span><\/a><\/em>\nThe day I received a request to move to another desk was the same day I met my colleague <\/span>Jocelyn Kaylee<\/span><\/a>. She was new to the team back then, and I, the intern, was asked to move so she, the full-timer, could have a dedicated workspace. <\/span>\nAnd whilst I was hastily packing up and transporting my belongings to a half-table in a drab corner, Jocelyn must\u2019ve apologised about 20 times. \u201cI\u2019m sorry you\u2019re moving because of me,\u201d she continued as she offered to share the desk, which was now hers. \u201cIt\u2019s alright, I\u2019m just an intern!\u201d I exclaimed in return.<\/span>\nJocelyn\u2019s response to my off-handed but lowly \u201cI\u2019m just an intern\u201d remark surprised me. Pausing her moving-in, she spoke in an almost horrified tone, \u201cNo! Don\u2019t say that about yourself!\u201d I spent the rest of the day thinking about her simple but empowering comment. <\/span>\n[caption id=\"attachment_19913\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"7360\"]\"\" Students peddling their craft and resumes at one of our many recruitment fairs. See our schedule here<\/a>![\/caption]\nInterns are often thought of as extras, calefares in the theatrical play of corporate life. The senior management are the main performers, the other full-timers supporting<\/span> actors<\/span>, and interns the trees swaying in the background and the unnoticeable boulders framing the scene. Most of us have been hired to do what the full-timers didn\u2019t deign to do, and so we\u2019ve often been given the most tedious and repetitive tasks a company could possibly have. <\/span>\nAnd yet, I found myself playing a different role in Shopee. The first act hadn\u2019t yet started, and I was made a part of the back-stage crew, tweaking the infrastructure and designing the foundations on which the performance of the century would be built. And on her very first day (goes to show that Shopee\u2019s recruiters are really good at hiring for culture fit), Jocelyn\u2019s quip summarised all that. I\u2019m not \u201cjust\u201d an intern; I mean <\/span>something<\/span><\/i> here. <\/span>\n[caption id=\"attachment_19915\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"6000\"]\"\" We\u2019re all trying our best here, regardless of whether we\u2019re interns or full-timers[\/caption]\nI spent a total of four months in <\/span>Shopee<\/span><\/a>, and did end-to-end recruitment for new interns (on top of market research for employer branding purposes). That\u2019s right, an intern recruiting interns. This might be a lofty experience to desire elsewhere, but here at Shopee, the impossible was made possible – all thanks to my manager <\/span>Viona<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>\nRecruiting new interns was fun. It stretched my capacity for quick-witted responses, taught me how to discern sincerity and truthfulness from mere eloquence, allowed me to work with supervisors across departments, and showed me what a life of a full-time recruiter could be like. I received sufficient training to do the basic, and pushed myself to go beyond what I knew. I never had to reveal that I was an intern myself, and my candidates never asked – probably because it would\u2019ve been impolite to do so or because they couldn\u2019t even tell, or both. <\/span>\n[caption id=\"attachment_19916\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"7360\"]\"\" Learning from the best: A moment in time with our Senior Recruiter Diah Fawnia<\/a>[\/caption]\nAs a recruiter, your candidates\u2019 questions will begin to sound familiar after the first 10 phone calls. The questions I got asked most frequently were related to my experiences with Shopee\u2019s company culture. \u201cWhat is it like working in Shopee? What is the culture like?\u201d Every candidate wanted my honest response, and that\u2019s exactly what I would give them. Without even hesitating, I would repeat the following for as many times as they asked: there\u2019s an abundance of learning opportunities if you would go looking (or asking) for them; supervisors will empower you to make autonomous decisions; you\u2019ll have freedom and flexibility to create a ripple effect in the company, however small and shallow it may be. <\/span>\nBeing Shopee\u2019s intern was one of the best things that could\u2019ve possibly happened for my career and personal development. I can\u2019t put to words everything I\u2019ve learnt in this short but incredible internship, but here\u2019s my attempt to summarise the most important lessons into two pointers:<\/span>\n\n\n

1. Which is menial – your job or your attitude?<\/h2>\n\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_19912\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"7360\"]\"\" Playing second fiddle doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re of lesser worth; it only means you\u2019re stepping up to answer to a need, so do it with gusto and glee[\/caption]\nIn the movie <\/span>The Devil Wears Prada<\/span><\/i><\/a>, main character Andrea <\/span>Sachs<\/span> finally gets her big break – but only after her fairy Vogue-father Nigel Kipling points out that her work attitude needed a makeover. She was bored of scheduling her boss\u2019 appointments with Dolce & Gabbana, and was frustrated that her outstanding college transcript and the-sky-is-the-limit journalist dreams led her only to this. <\/span>\nTruth is, we\u2019re all Andreas, myself included. As an intern recruiter, I must\u2019ve sieved through close to a thousand resumes, some impressive and some hardly worth a second look. At some point, I started getting restless. \u201cHow is what I\u2019m doing helping me become the best version of myself? Is this all I\u2019m contributing to the team? Is this what I want to do after graduation?\u201d Thoughts like these haunted me, and gradually became a buffet to my appetite for excellence. <\/span>\nThen one day, out of the blue, my manager thanked me for the little notes I had left for her. I had made them to categorise the resumes I had studied, in hopes that the colored tabs would help her see the reasoning behind my differentiating of the potentials from the debacles with clarity and ease. They did, and they even, much to her delight, lightened her workload. My side projects proved to be helpful to the team too, which I realised when my other <\/span>supervisor <\/span>Michelle<\/span><\/a> brought them up during several of our team meetings. That\u2019s when I realised that having a good attitude and being faithful with the little things can go a long way. <\/span>\nAll of us like to think that the highest forms of satisfaction come only from creating world-shaking, history-making results (which begin from having stellar assignments). But if there\u2019s one thing my internship here at Shopee has taught me, it\u2019s doing above and beyond in spite of your personal reservations about the tasks. You\u2019ve been trusted to do this job, so do it with all your might.<\/span>\n\n\n

2. Don’t be afraid of your own voice<\/h2>\n\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_19914\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"4873\"]\"\" Find a comfortable way to speak up – it could be standing in front of a crowd or a one-to-one outside of the meeting room walls[\/caption]\nThe first meeting I had with the People team, an opinion formed in my head and I was terrified at how urged I felt to speak it aloud. Even in my head the ideas sounded awfully raw – what sense would I make if I were to say it to the 20-odd seated around the table? How could I bear their razor-sharp gazes on me, the intern bold enough to have an opinion? My heart raced for a good 10 minutes, until I could take it no longer and blurted it out. <\/span>\nTo my surprise, the full-timers nodded. They agreed with the direction I was taking, and added to my ideas with some of their own. That\u2019s when I realised I wasn\u2019t going to be parked in the shadows, disapproved or denied because of the title in my contract; my merit would be based on the value I created. And so that\u2019s what I went on to do. I turned up at work each day ready to shine like a star – in my own little way. <\/span>\nIn school, we\u2019re used to being handed little gold stars for participating in group discussions and asking questions in class. Yet, every intern will step into the workplace realising that there\u2019s no reward system for verbal participation. You either make sense or are just making noise, which, in that case, is far more prudent for you to be quiet. No one will pat you on the back for speaking; they will, however, give you compliments for suggesting good ideas and strengthening the fallibility of a project\u2019s premise. So do that; if you have something worthwhile to say, make sure you voice it out – at the appropriate time and to the appropriate person. Great ideas have never been chained in the astral space of one\u2019s mind – it has always required courage to speak it aloud before things get set in motion.<\/span>\n[caption id=\"attachment_19911\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"6945\"]\"\" Stepping out of your comfort zone to challenge even your own habits will reap you rewards beyond imagination[\/caption]\nThere\u2019s no perfect internship, but Shopee has provided me with so much room to grow. I developed professional skill sets, gained new connections across functions, and grew as an individual. I even conquered the ultimate pummel of initiating conversations, which had once caused me to lose countless opportunities to be acquainted with others and to get to know them better. Somehow, being a recruiter helped me overcome that barrier. I\u2019m no longer fearful, which is such liberty to experience. <\/span>\nThank you, Shopee, for being my home ground for growth and for treating me like an equal!<\/span>\nSigning off,\nVanessa Tan<\/a>\nFormer People Team intern\n\n\n
\n\n\nInspired by Vanessa’s story? Looking for an internship? We’re open for summer interns and interns all-year-round. Find your opportunities here!<\/a> For more reflection pieces by our Shopee employees, click here<\/a> and here<\/a>.]]> \t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Original draft by Vanessa Tan The day I received a request to move to another desk was the same day I met my colleague Jocelyn Kaylee. She was new to the team back then, and I, the intern, was asked to move so she, the full-timer, could have a dedicated workspace. And whilst I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":19917,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_bookmark_settings":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_review":[],"enable_review":"","type":"","name":"","summary":"","brand":"","sku":"","good":[],"bad":[],"score_override":"","override_value":"","rating":[],"price":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"jnews_post_split":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[1137,171,175],"class_list":["post-19910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-campus-recruitment","tag-lifeatshopee","tag-shopee-careers"],"yoast_head":"\nThe intern who recruited interns: Thoughts from the bottom of the food chain<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/shopee.sg\/blog\/shopee-lifeatshopee-ecommerce-internship-vanessa-tan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The intern who recruited interns: Thoughts from the bottom of the food chain\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Original draft by Vanessa Tan The day I received a request to move to another desk was the same day I met my colleague Jocelyn Kaylee. 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