For me, as a young adult dipping my toe in the competitive working world, an internship seems like a necessary thing to do for the survival of my future. Dramatic, I know.
So, with this in mind, I began searching the net and asking around for internship opportunities suitable for a second year engineering student. I found several that were appealing and fitting for me, one of them being Biji-Biji.
Having read their website and going through their facebook page, I could tell that Biji-Biji was a friendly and welcoming company. All their ads about any type of recruitment they had always oozed a sense of willingness to welcome anyone with an equal amount of willingness – not to work for them, but to work with them.
I felt rather excited when I came across Biji-Biji – what they do and what they stand for is really awesome so I just had to give it a shot.
On the day of the interview, my expectation was that I would be sitting in a waiting room with my crippling anxiety doing its daily run and when I meet my scary new boss who would grill me with questions regarding sustainability and the environment etc, I would do horribly.
But what really happened was the exact opposite. My interview took place in a casual environment – the mamak stall where I met two of their co-founders, Zoe and Gurpreet. The interview mostly composed of the co-founders trying to get to know me, my interest and what I expected to gain from them. From the interview, all the positive vibes I got from their social media interface proved to be right and so much more. By the end of the interview, they had said that they’d be glad for me to come to work with them, and I felt the same way too.
As I write this post now, I am nearly 1 month old in Biji-Biji. I work in the R&D department with 6 other great people, including Gurpreet. To be frank, R&D seems like the center point of all that goes on in Biji-Biji. With that being said, the R&D team always tries to be as efficient as we can and we ensure that our communication is always as best as we can be. It’s easy to have good communication when you have a boss that repeatedly says he loves questions and he enjoys being bugged.
Ultimately, I can confidently say that the work atmosphere is, as I said, open, welcoming and full of enthusiasm. You are not afraid to ask questions, to make mistakes, to give your opinion. The conventional boss-employee relationship doesn’t exist – you feel like you are friends with everyone and your age or your experience (or lack thereof) doesn’t play any significant role in feeling belonging or contributing to this workplace.
A quick photo session after a Digital Marketing training
I was given the opportunity to represent Biji-Biji in a debate competition to pitch in our innovating ideas to the public and won the first prize!
My workplace with some of the R&D team
