How the internship experience in this COVID-19 pandemic helped our intern.

Last fall, I accepted a position at eKontrol GmbH as a business development intern. My internship was six months long, and I had the pleasure to work from July to December as an Intern, which made it all more fun working with talented people around.

While I was pursuing my final semester at Skema Business School I realized and decided to start a career in the EV industry as I already had experience working in the machinery industry (John Deere). After applying for this position, I interviewed with two managers, and we instantly clicked over our passion for bringing electric vehicles to the commercial market (Public transport, heavy commercial vehicles etc). A few weeks later, I was hired and started my internship.

My internship was entirely remote, and I worked about 30 hours each week. I was given a weekly checklist of tasks and had biweekly progress meetings with my regional boss. One of the things I was responsible for finding business opportunities overseas and doing competitor research. I also would keep track of how our products are performing and how we can improve. I was able to give virtual presentations in a few meetings and discussed how we can make changes to our marketing strategies due to covid19.

Since we were in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were many things I was not able to do. Usually, business development interns get to attend weekly product workshop sessions, meet with engineers, and travelling to exhibitions.

Nevertheless, this internship gave me the knowledge of how the EV industry functions, helped me to know how B2B marketing works, and the importance of building relationships. This experience has opened my eyes that my passion to work with the EV industry and advocate for green and clean energy.