Startups withdraw internships to B-school

Startups withdraw internships to B-school students amid the second wave of Covid-19

“Sorry, your internship offer has been revoked because of Covid-19.”Startups withdraw internships to B-school students amid the second wave of covid-19 in India.

First-year MBA students across IIMs – from Lucknow to Shillong – and other B-schools have taken to professional networking site LinkedIn to air their displeasure after companies revoked internship offers to cite economic uncertainty following the Covid-19 second wave.

From cybersecurity to business-to-business sales and mid-sized startups, companies across sectors have informed B-school placement cells that the internships are on hold or that they might not pay stipends, a minimum of a dozen MBA students.

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“They should’ve told us before. They kept on stalling,” a student at one among the IIMs said, asking specifically that the IIM be not named.

Over 1,000 students from MBA and Engineering colleges like IIT-Bombay, various IIMs, Wellingkar Mumbai, Delhi University, Symbiosis Pune, and Banaras Hindu University have filled out a form between April 28-April 30 to get an internship through Mission Summer Internship an initiative by Mission Helping Hands.

“These are the scholars whose internships have gotten revoked because of the second phase of Covid,” says Dr. Shubhra Chakraborty, founding father of Mission Helping Hands. The initiative placed 384 students for summer internships last year when the primary wave of the pandemic hit. It received over 1,700 registration over a period of a fortnight. “Our number this year goes to be above last year. We launched just three days ago,” says Chakraborty.
The IIM student said the withdrawal was announced just three days before his joining date despite repeatedly checking with the interior placement cell leading up to the beginning date.
“We lost a month, I might have gone to another company and interned,” he said.

For many students who have a hefty education loan to repay, an internship is vital to intensify from the primary to the second year.

The uncertainty is now causing them to require up any role on offer.

“People try to take advantage of us for work we do as an intern,” said a 25-year-old who took to LinkedIn to seek out an internship after his offer was withdrawn. “It has become a joke now. They’re hiring from IIM and that they don’t want to pay. That hurts.”

Another student whose internship offered wasn’t honored said: “We are trying to find new opportunities through our own contacts but it’s difficult thanks to the continuing pandemic.”

A 23-year-old MBA student from Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, was informed by a Mumbai-based ed-tech startup every week after joining that he would not be paid thanks to “pandemic-related reasons.”

“Business valuation is often done from home. I might have done it on my laptop albeit I used to be understanding of their Noida office. there’s no difference,” the scholar, who has taken an education loan of Rs 17 lakh, said.

He added A friend’s offer to intern at an NSE-listed manufacturing company was postponed indefinitely last week

According to several students, Israel-based cybersecurity company Gamasec, which had plans to expand in India, withdrew many summer internship offers from IIMs and other B-schools.

Explaining why a former senior executive at the firm said the role had required them to be physically present in its office in Bengaluru.

E-commerce content startup Mason had to tug back summer internship offers in its marketing department because the team leads were infected with Covid-19.
however, the company has onboarded interns in operations and sales, said Kausambi Manjita, founder and CEO of the Accel and Lightspeed Venture Partners-funded startup.

“You have an obligation to people that join to form them successful. it’s worse for somebody to hitch you especially fresh out of school and have nobody to support you,” Manjita said, adding that placement cells at top-tier colleges were scrambling to assist students.

On Friday, she received one such request from the location cell of a top-tier management institute to onboard a student for a six-week internship, for free.

A spokesperson for IIM Bangalore declined to discuss what percentage of summer internship offers had been withdrawn.

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