My first internship at a MNC 🤓

Last year I got the opportunity to intern at a MNC for the first time and I thought I will share my experience and my comparison between SMEs and Start-ups

To sum up my internship experiences:

• 2019: Exhibitions & Events SME (6 months)

• 2022: Local Logistics start-up (6 months)

• 2023: MedTech MNC (6 months)

Here's my experience with the differences:

1️⃣ Finding the right contact person

📈MNC: Because of its large scale, sometimes I find it difficult to find the right contact to get information 😭 (This is especially so when the contact person is in a different region) I remember I took almost 2 weeks to get the right app access 😭😭😭

📈 Start-up & SME: Based on my experience, I did not face any significant challenges as everyone knows everyone 👌🏼

2️⃣ Exposure

📈 MNC: As SG is the regional office for the MNC I interned at, I got the opportunity to be exposed to the APAC region (including ANZ). This exposure is really useful as you can get to work with people across the region 💯💯💯

📈 SME/Start-up: I was pretty much limited to Singapore operations. Even though SG is also the regional office, the exposure is mainly SEA based.

3️⃣ Job Scope:

📈 MNC: At MNCs, job scopes are more specific and narrow which means you are less likely to expect workload beyond your job scope

📈 Start-up: The JDs here are more dynamic which means you get to do more things. At the start-up I was at, I saw marketing department helping with the operations department super regularly

4️⃣ Sense of belonging:

📈 MNC: As it was my first MNC experience, I was so stressed and had imposter syndrome. I was anxious all the time whether I am underperforming 🥲🥲🥲. It also didn't help that my colleagues are more senior in their position and I was the only intern in the whole department 😩 definitely felt lonely at times when I was struggling with my anxiety.

📈 SME/Start-ups: The culture here feels more knitted based on my experience because the departments are relatively smaller = easier to know each other 😩 based on both my experiences, I had a lot of intern friends with me so I wasn't lonely at all.

However these factors ultimately depend on the company and its culture 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼

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