Internship at the IT company - a double leap forward

Each intern has a personal supervisor - an in-house professional who accompanies the young person every step of the way, giving assignments, evaluating what his/her intern knows and what they don’t know, and how they can be helped to get better in those specific areas. According to Agnė, Centric employees are eager to work with interns and, usually, when asked who wants to dedicate three months to train a young person in addition to their main workload, there’s a lot of volunteers.

“On the other hand, it is one of those values that are very important to us at Centric: a willingness to learn and share our knowledge,” Agnė says.

The second, and equally important, motivation for training interns is that it is an integral part of corporate social responsibility: educating the younger generation, either through internships or through lectures or mentoring in higher education institutions, thus contributing to a deeper knowledge and education of future professionals.

Following this fall’s Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) Career Days, a total of 12 students have been invited to internship interviews at Centric IT Solutions Lithuania. The company’s specialists chose 5 interns who have been learning specific skills for three months and, by the way, are getting paid - paid internship is also an internal policy of the company.

“The recent job interviews with interns, the same as interviews before, has left a very bright impression - we communicated with insightful young people who were well aware of how to prepare for and participate in a job interview. Those were personalities communicating freely and reasonably,” Agnė explained.

Matas agrees with him, “You can imagine things but it is very different when you can actually touch upon and see the whole process up close. For example, before coming here I knew very little about DevOps and Cloud Engineering, so I, just like the other interns, find everything very interesting and, of course, I can see how much I still need to learn.”

Although combining work and studies is not easy and one has to push harder, Matas ensures the goal is worth it, “I think this is a necessary step for those who are preparing on becoming experts in a particular field and are interested in the market itself, its innovation and technology. Although I am attending a web design academy besides my studies, I already see and am convinced that the experience gained through the internship like Centric’s is extremely valuable. In general, the internship period is all about trying everything out and discovering what you want to do. What would I want today? Perhaps to learn programming better and maybe try a project manager or similar position in the future.”

When asked what he would advise his colleagues who are only considering internships at IT companies, Kristijonas says, “I would like to encourage those who often unduly underestimate themselves, delay and hesitate: try it and come for an internship interview. So what if you will not be selected? It is not a setback, on the contrary, you will see where and what your gaps are and how you can fill them.”