Since its inception, PayU has always thrived to inculcate openness, integrity, ownership, courage and collaboration in its vibrant and close knit work culture. Be full time employees or interns, India’s leading payment gateway, has always encouraged innovation and transparency amidst its workforce. Vrushali Avhad, is one extremely inspiring example of these core values: Ownership and Courage. Here’s her 2 month growth journey as a PayU intern.
From Vrushali’s desk…..
The Selection
Like all first year B-school students, I sent my internship application via campus recruitments. I gave many interviews but nothing clicked as such. While searching for internship opportunities outside, then a very interesting opportunity by PayU grabbed my eyes. I know this company, I have heard of it. Suddenly I recollect – It’s the company which processes online payments and I have used it, while booking movie, air or bus tickets and my favorite shopping website too! I was all game for it.
“How was your first year in college?” The interviewer kickstarted the interview
This was the first interview which lasted for exactly 1.25 hours! The interviewer and I spoke about everything – marketing, beliefs, processes, strategies, college, internship experiences, work profile so far and more. PayU’s Khar office in Mumbai is very creative, lively and attractive and that was my eureka moment — I want to work here!
Voilà! Next day, the HR called to say:
“Congratulations Vrushali, you are selected!”
The Induction
I remember this day clearly like it just happened yesterday! Nervousness began to creep in on my first working day when, the IT representative handed me my own laptop and asked me to wait for my mentor to guide me further. Soon, my co-intern and I joined my mentor in a meeting room. In a matter of just minutes, the glass board was filled with payment gateway flow. This was new to me. I never made any efforts to figure out how a payment gateway works. I was in awe with all the information download in system. Our mentor sailed us through:
- All about PayU
- How it functions
- Various segments of PayU with their target markets
- Future goals
- Work hierarchy
- Role we were going to play in the picture
- Expectations from the internship
‘Every second should be productive’ is the moto.
The Project
As the induction downed to an end, I was introduced to the team was going to work with for the next two months and got briefed about my project:
The main crux of my internship revolved around inbound marketing and further grinding into content creation, distribution, repurposing and strategizing from scratch. I got an amazing opportunity to pour in my ideas and thoughts with the team, while brainstorming strategies for a new product launch. This experience gave me insights into:
- How an organization approaches a product launch
- Different ways to create marketing strategies (for real)
- Making work easy by breaking tasks into action-ables for smooth execution
Creating concise and creative powerpoint presentations was my primary task. I really liked the idea to convert long form content (blogs) into short and relevant content (ppts, videos) in order to feed readers with desired content. All the presentations I created were published on public platforms like Slideshare, Quora and many more.
I never knew simple presentations could have their own breathing space!
Through my stint with PayU, I created over 20 presentations and proudly roped in PayUmoney’s slideshare account completely under my wings. Do have a look at my work, 35K+ views it till date and most of them loved it too!
What I really like about inbound marketing (online) is it provides: instant gratification in the form of numbers. Apart from repurposing content, my contribution as an intern flared to writing PayUmoney’s Bolt Checkout demo page copy, app descriptions, PayUmoney YouTube video copies, being active on Quora, learning basics of SEO, Google Analytics and also drafting “How-To guides”.
I wrote my first professional blog: Expert’s Guide to Instagram Content Strategy
The blog got me laurels of appreciation and today it is ranking on the first page of the leading search engine. It also made a super quick entry into the top 10 PayUmoney blogs.
Creating, distributing, tracking and optimizing is my key takeaway.
The Team
PayU’s Khar office has one of the coolest office vibes to work in and an amazing, talent nurturing work culture. The key highlight is that one meeting when I got a chance to interact with the CEO PayU India. That day I realized, with great power comes responsibility and humility as well!
I had a great time with my colleagues who made work fun and play. “Creatively zenzoned” is a term we coined and used when we have outgrown our innate creative juices. As the saying goes; if the roots are strong, the tree lives long. Those are the strong values, PayU exudes throughout its organization and to its employees. Overall my experience as an intern at PayU was exceptional and helped me optimize my talent, skills and passion to another level all together.
Beholding these beautiful memories of a lifetime, Vrushali signs off from her desk to prep up for a golden career in digital marketing. However as the show must go on..with all your marketing efforts for your business in place, it’s a good idea to have an all-in-one payment solution in place as well. Now to enjoy the best payment gateway experience and grow your business effortlessly!
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