Interns – the reason why many startups have succeeded and survived in India today. Interns bring a lot of passion to learn, deliver, grow, and allow every startup to remain extremely agile and cost effective. As a tribute to the contribution of interns to startup ecosystem, Techstory along with Internshala is bringing to you a series focused on Superstar Interns – stories of interns who have played a significant role in the success of their companies. Today, we present the story of Aashish Mogha, the superstar intern at Cashkaro.
After joining Cashkaro as an intern in the first week of February 2015, Aashish was overwhelmed by the open work culture he experienced at his new company. This was the first time that he was exposed to working in a professional setup right after his college and was thoroughly enjoying the responsibility he was entrusted with. It was the independence to work in his own way and the opportunity to learn at CashKaro that motivated Aashish to join full-time in the month of June.
“I started liking the faith and confidence shown towards me by Rohan (Co-founder, CashKaro) to whom I had to report. Also, there is healthy work-life balance at CashKaro. Above all, the whole team is like a family. They never made me feel like an intern. Gradually, CashKaro became my second home and I continued here as a full-time employee,” says Aashish.
Rohan Bhargava, Co-founder of CashKaro, was thoroughly moved by the enthusiasm and sense of ownership displayed by Aashish when he was an intern. Rohan immediately realized that Aashish could play an instrumental role in building the organization. Remembering the days when Aashish first joined CashKaro, Rohan says “Working with Aashish has been really awesome. He joined as an intern and from the very first day demonstrated a keen inclination towards learning new things. We were looking for an intern for our product team, someone who had an advanced skill set when working with Microsoft Excel. He showed exceptional work in developing excel macros which helped us in strengthening our product functionality.
He not only understood the problem but also gave his views on how to do the same set of task with more accuracy and in lesser time. He is very energetic and helps other team members to perform the same set of tasks by automation. He learnt visual basic scripting & helped solving various day to day operations through this skillset. He is really a champ & a rock star of our team.”
CashKaro has been hiring interns right since the inception and offering internships is a part of their strategic hiring schemes. Interns have proved to be valuable assets for CashKaro as they have always contributed with fresh ideas, injected creativity, and brought a new perspective into the company’s work culture. Overall, interns at CashKaro have brought great enthusiasm, energy, and a positive challenge to the status quo.
Related Read: How CashKaro Is Carving A Place At The Top In India’s Cashback And Couponing Market !
“Offering internships is one of the best ways to connect and build relationships with students early in their academic careers and getting them introduced to the brand. In addition, it helps in building a pool of talented, young professionals who in turn become brand advocates and help in communicating the brand message amongst their peer groups. Students are early adopters of technology and can bring an unbiased point of view for your product. They can be critical and at the same time suggest changes which can help in getting a competitive advantage at an early stage of product lifestyle,” adds Rohan.
At CashKaro interns hired are given a conducive environment to get trained and hone their abilities and skills. They are further tested to see if they can take up a permanent role in the future. This minimizes the risk and cost of hiring the wrong person as they are already attuned to the work environment, and this generally optimizes the recruitment process for early career hires.
“Further, we have observed that interns tend to show a strong dedication to the job and determination to prove their ability as they are experiencing organized work culture for the first time. This further leads to their ability to innovate and experiment which is an invaluable asset in a future employee.
On the other hand, experienced hires brings a lot to the table in terms of expertise in their individual domains. They have acquired skills over time. Their problem solving ability and a 360 degree approach is indispensable,” says Rohan.
Working in one of the pioneers and India’s largest cashback and coupon site, Aashish took up the role of Marketing Associate (as the part of Search Engine Marketing Team) and his key responsibilities included Google Remarketing and SEM campaigns for various categories. “But the list doesn’t end here. Majority of the Excel Automation (Excel Macros) related stuff and some small Web scraping tasks also come under my bucket,” says Aashish.
Since CashKaro did not restrict him to any particular domain or department, he was free to learn anything he liked and contribute to other departments as well. The biggest challenge for him lied in cleaning up the product data that they get from different retailers. For the product development team, doing this manually was almost impossible and hence Aashish took up the responsibility to set up custom excel functions and add-ins to automate the task for them. “The level of satisfaction whenever I came up with a solution is unexplainable. My boss and manager praised me with SUPER COOL and BAHUT BHADIYAA!” he quips.
Starting out as a complete amateur, Aashish is delighted at the exponential learning curve he gained at CashKaro. “My decision taking capability has improved. The kind of work I was given has inculcated a sense of responsibility and ownership skills in me. I am also improving on my leadership and managerial skills alongside. From the technical side, I get trained on SEM, Google Analytics, Excel, Excel Automation etc.,” says Aashish.
Though being someone who decides his role on a daily basis, Aashish would love to see himself leading one of the technical divisions sometime in the future. Speaking for his organisation, Aashish says, “Globally affiliate sites contribute to 15%-20% of ecommerce sales and with the burgeoning ecommerce industry in India the potential for sites like us is monumental. 5 years down the line I can see CashKaro having a larger market share and even replicating the model to other countries.”
Having brought a different approach, new ideas, and positive energy to the team, Aashish attributes his inspiration to his entire team at CashKaro. To name a few, he lists Rohan Bhargava on top of the list from whom he learnt to ‘give more than 100%’ in terms of his passion for work and the humbleness which he carries along with him. Ashish also found inspiration from Aniruddh Sharma, Digital Marketing Manager, whose clarity of thoughts and deep understanding of the subject deeply inspired Aashish. He also adds Kamran Akhtar, SEM Manager, to his list because of the work ethics and the positive attitude that Kamran inspires the team with.
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Related Read: Internshala: Creating A Country Of Employable Graduates !
