[GEN 19.20] Growing Personally, by Growing the Product!
“I believe this product truly tests the capacity of any member, Team Leader, Vice President, MCVP, AIVP, etc who work for it.”——Kevin, MC VP iGT 1920, India
Having been newly recruited in this organization in August 2015, I was first introduced to this product as a fresher. It was still an early stage for me, trying to understand how AIESEC really works & what each of its products aims to deliver. However, gradually I came to learn how this product stood out in making a real difference & building leadership.
Today, while I’ve finished my AIESEC journey, and having worked on this product for 4 out of my 5 years journey in AIESEC, I can confidently say that this product means a lot to me. I’m not saying this, because I worked in this product, but because I’ve truly learnt and experienced what it means to be a part of this product & how it’s contributing to make the world better.
And my first step to understand that happened when I had my first Realization of an Intern. She was from Brazil, and her name was Julia. From helping her settle in India, to re-exploring my own city with her, I felt like an Intern myself. She spent around a year in India & travelled to many places throughout her stay here. The naiveness in every question that she had & my eagerness to answer the same, helped me rediscover the beauty of my own country altogether differently. I was getting introduced to what it means to experience Indianess in India & what values my country stood for. It helped me to find beauty in things, I could never see before. If it were not for this product, I wouldn’t have been able to learn more about my own country.
Time passed quickly & her internship eventually ended. I don’t think anyone else, but herself can better describe this experience. So here’s a small screenshot from a post of her last day in India.
This was just 1 out of hundreds of other testimonies, of how this product was creating a real impact, & how I was personally contributing towards it.
I believe this product truly tests the capacity of any member, Team Leader, Vice President, MCVP, AIVP, etc who work for it. Not everyone has the capability to work for it, as it requires not just dedication & hard work, but more importantly passion, and that’s what I feel makes GT members stand out from the rest.
I can share this with my personal experience of my 2017 IGT Commission, when I was VP IGT, & Ezgi Karabat (current AIVP GT) was MCVP IGT of India 2016–17. From that very commission, we had at least 8 VPs, who got on to the MC of India or other entities, and 6 of us also went on to become LCPs. This was the case with not just the IGT commission of our year, but also for the commissions before and after us. I believe the more rigorous experience a person goes through, the more they are able to sharpen their Leadership skills.
Getting a single realization in GT is an achievement in itself. Filtering CVs builds your analytical capacity, sending them to companies and waiting for response tests your patience, taking the entire process forward & finally getting the Intern Realized tests your resilience throughout the customer flow & makes you a better individual. In addition to that, dealing with companies gives you a first hand experience of how the corporate culture works in your country & helps you build your professional skills, which will be very useful for your after AIESEC career. It also adds up as a unique value to your Resume, of how you had this experience at an early stage of your career. Moreover, your participation in the entire process allows you to understand the market Supply & Demand for various roles, which helps you to choose how you want to take your academic career forward which you not just resonate with, but also has value in the corporate world.
When we talk about GT & its impact on companies, it plays a very important role in helping them grow. Having internationals working in the company upscales it’s overall working environment. These interns bring in unique value to the company by sharing different perspectives on the discussion table & overall enhancing the communication. And hiring these internationals through AIESEC makes the overall process for them supper easy, convenient, fast & cheap. Having serviced numerous companies, I have majorly received very satisfactory feedback about the value GT product added to their company.
In these constantly changing times, not just due to pandemic but also politically, I believe this product can act as an invaluable tool to help take lead in the right direction. Let’s keep growing!
Feel free to reach me at ​kevin.jain@aiesec.in​ or (+91) 9408455586 over text. Thank you.
