Investing in oneself with Farid

Hindsight is 2020 (#HI2020) is a ground up initiative founded and led by a class of 2020 graduate - Jessica Lee Yi Ling  from Singapore Management University (SMU). In this series, she uncovers personal stories of resilience, courage and love amidst this crazy year we call 2020. Through the reflections and learnings shared in #HI2020, she hopes to empower internship and job seekers to improve their status quos and encourage aspiring entrepreneurs and volunteers to pursue their passions in 2021.

Investing in oneself with Farid Mohammad

Don't be fooled by Farid’s calm and composed demeanour; this penultimate SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business student is one of the most participative students I've ever met. A Finance and Communications Management guru, Bondue Corporate Relations Director, Farrago Programmes Head and incoming Google Summer Intern, he really has quite the experience! Here's a fun fact: he learned Stock Market movements through simulations in Neopets and Grand Theft Auto V. Let's take a trip down memory lane and revisit his summer 2020 experience.

Here's 3 key things you will learn

1)     Invest in yourself, it pays the best dividends.

2)     You too are a brand. Whether you know it or not, like it or not.

3)     You must forge your own path for it to mean anything.

Hey Farid, we first met when I participated in your exco's initiative: My Bondue Life. Now it's your turn. Tell us all about your Bondue Life thus far!

The first Bondue event that I joined was in Summer 2019 (Bondue camp), which was a very memorable and fulfilling experience for me. Joining Bondue Exco wasn’t on my mind then, but it all changes when I happened to speak with the 15th Bondue President, Berwyn, before one of my classes. Our quick corridor chat about the summer camp experience soon led to an in-depth discussion about the possibilities of serving as a Bondue Exco. I eventually ran for Bondue's 16th Executive Committee and got elected as the Corporate Relations Director. I was inspired by my predecessor, who chartered his own direction for his term. I decided to do the same by incorporating sustainability as one of the goals for my term. Throughout the journey, I enjoyed getting to know more about the respective representatives from different companies, and realised one of my strengths was building relations with people given my interest in people's lives.

What skills did you learn from Bondue that you think were applicable to the working world?

Communication and negotiation skills when engaging with prospective sponsors and building a two-way relationship were useful skills I picked up while serving my term.

Another notable one would be managing people at work (MPW). I always believe that team work makes the dream work and no man is an island. Every team is different, and the working dynamics is something you need to find before work can actually start.

Give me an idea of what your dream summer looks like.            

I wanted to have an internship at a Bank, and at the same time, see the fruits of our labour for Bondue's 2 Major events, Bondue Camp and Slightly Scarlet come to life.

How did Covid-19 impact your plans and the activities you were undertaking?   

Good: In the case for Bondue, we were originally quite bummed out to know that the events were no longer possible given the Covid-19 Situation. That said, we realised that it was a good excuse to start digitalizing most things for our club, which includes making our merchandise platform online. Together with my mentor, Benjamin Wong, we hosted a series of webinars for Kinobi, now an early stage startup which focuses on mentoring.

Bad: The department at the bank I wanted to go to froze their hiring, which also meant no Interns for the said department. It was also quite sad to know that a few of my sponsorship deals fell through because of the Covid-19 Situation.

Fill me in on the details about your Bondue involvement during summer 2020.   

I managed a team of three people for Bondue Freshmen Experience 2020. Although, Sponsorships wasn’t my main focus, I just wanted to facilitate interaction among freshmen, introduce to LKCSB. we faced quite a few challenges in terms of the kinds of Experience we wanted the Freshmen to have as it was limited to an online event. However, the BFE 2020 team was creative to come up with awesome games that allowed the Freshmen to engage in team-building games through online means. E.g: The Price is Right, Treasure Hunt @ Home, and TikTok Challenges.

This year, Slightly Scarlet 2020 which is usually a Philanthropic Fashion Show, had to be done online as well. The organising committee produced series of Instagram Stories and TikToks to raise awareness about the Visually Impaired Community. Through this, I learnt more about these trendy Social Media Platforms like TikTok and IG Stories, which helps to spread simple messages very quickly. It was impressive to see how the Organising Committee managed to raise impressive amount despite not being able to do a physical fashion show.

Tell me more about your original internship plans with the bank.           

In late March, the department that I applied for was going to be combined with another department, which meant a reduction in headcount which also meant no interns was going to be taken in for that department. It was really unfortunate and unlucky.

I felt pretty defeated because I applied for over 100 internships and that bank was my one and only hope.

Technically, I only had a 1% success rate in my applications, and even that one was not successful. It was already March by then, plus with the Finals and Project Presentations Week looming, I stopped thinking about getting an internship and chose to focus on the present instead.

I understand that you were later offered two internships in June. Why did you turn them down?

Yes, I applied for SMEs and Startups in the Fintech space, went for interviews and was offered in June.

However, I realised that there was no point doing an internship for the sake of doing it, for a company that I may not truly feel for.

Additionally, given my commitment to Bondue and Kinobi (a digital mentoring platform started by my mentor), I was unsure if I could commit to an Internship to the best of my ability.

I began to question the real value of going for an internship. Was it just about clearing the requirement? I asked myself whether going for these either of these two internships would help me grow and learn a useful skill. Of course, money was a consideration since I wouldn’t be earning during that period, but I decided that there were better ways to invest in and develop myself. For me, I started investing money in the stock market to earn an income to tide through the summer break. I also tried out courses available on Linkedin Learning and Coursera.

I'm sure you've received many comments and opinions along the way. What was the best and worst advice you got during this period?            

Best Advice: Know your Why's and your How's when you do things.

Find purpose in something you want to do, that’s the first step in the journey of self-discovery.

Before I decided on turning down those two offers, I asked myself ; Why did I even apply for these Internships in the first place? What do I really want to achieve at the end of this 3-month long break? Only then I realised that I was only going for it because to most students, it's a "Norm" to do so.

Worst Advice: Take whatever you can in terms of internship, something is better than nothing. I weighed the advice and asked myself about whether it aligns with my sense of purpose. Whenever I want to do something, I would give it my all. However, given my already heavy commitments, I decided not to heed this advice.

I know this summer has been a crazy ride for you. That said, congratulations on securing an internship with Google for summer 2021! Why do you think your hiring manager from Google chose you?             

It just so happened to have exposure to the kind of market that they wanted (Kinobi had a related project).

I think the manager liked the way that I handled my setbacks during my 2020 Summer and how I chose to develop on myself instead.

I think one thing that went well with my interview was that I could deep dive into problems I experienced in Bondue because I was fully committed to the events at the time. It helped that the problems that needed solutions were "Digital" in nature given the online events; this allowed me to give very vivid and detailed examples of my ability in handling problems that I run into.

Google has tons of resources on Youtube for Interview Tips and one that really helped is to say things as it is. This way it allows any interviewer to really understand your ability.

Now that you can say you've been there and done that, what advice do you have to give to your juniors applying for internships?          

I would say develop yourself first, find out more about yourself and invest in yourself when applying for a role. Not many people work on their personal branding, which sets them behind when it comes to interview. Many people just force fitting/faking to fit job description that they THINK the interviewer wants.

Personal branding helps to tie you to a certain skill/trait that you have that makes you outstanding or remembered by at the very least.

I think you should always remember that you discover more about yourself through introspecting and reflecting upon yourself truthfully; you don't necessarily need an internship to do these things.

Through whole of 2020, what kept you going despite the different challenges and set backs that you faced?           

What keeps me going is having that strong sense of purpose and knowing who I'm doing it for. There were people who depended on me for the team's success, which were my team in Bondue and Kinobi. It helped knowing that these events impacted people's lives in a way that once helped me when I was a Freshmen in SMU.

It's not always about finding someone inspirational, and copying their footsteps, but rather having someone inspire you to have pride in both your success and failures; so that you can craft your own journey.

Everyone has their own definitions of success, and there are countless ways to get to that.

To wrap things up on a warm and fuzzy note, are there any people you wish to make a shout out to?

I would like to thank the wonderful mentors and mentees I've met in Mendaki Club Mentoring Circle (Now Mara Mentoring). My mentor, Benjamin Wong has been someone always encouraging to me!

Thank you to my 16th Bondue Exco as well, you guys are the best! Thank you for helping me to build up my resilience and for making me a better person when handling setbacks. Despite 2020 seeming entirely a setback for us, I think we pulled through way better than we hoped.