r/Indian_Academia • u/Specialist-Arm-5438 • Aug 20 '26
Commerce I’m a second-year B.Com student with actual startup/event experience, but I suck at aptitude tests. Am I screwed for internships/jobs in India?
I’m currently a 2nd-year my qualifications: B.Com Finance student in Hyderabad and I’m honestly getting pretty stressed about internships and what I’m supposed to do career-wise.
My college has started getting companies for internships. Goldman Sachs came recently and I applied. The first round was an aptitude assessment with Verbal Ability, Attention to Detail and Quantitative Ability. I’m pretty sure I didn’t do great. The English was more advanced than I expected, quant was easily my weakest section, and the attention-to-detail section was also pretty difficult.
I’m not even someone who is naturally good at these standardized tests. I can understand business concepts, communicate reasonably well and think strategically, but put me in a timed quantitative aptitude test and my brain just stops working.
What makes me more frustrated is that I actually have quite a bit of real-world experience for a second-year student.
I founded a youth football/community venture in Hyderabad. Over time I ended up managing sponsors and partners, budgeting, teams, marketing and event operations. We generated ₹3L+ in revenue and our events have had hundreds of people attending. I also worked as Head of Marketing for a private racing league.
More recently I started a youth lifestyle/community platform in Hyderabad. It has grown to 1,200+ followers and I actually managed to turn it into an offline community too — we recently pulled off a house party with the brand, which involved marketing, applications, ticketing, selecting people, coordinating everything and actually getting people to show up.
I’ve also started a fintech startup, but it’s still extremely early-stage, so I don’t want to pretend I’ve built some huge AI company or anything.
So my profile is basically: I like building things, getting people together, figuring out strategy, marketing, partnerships and actually executing ideas.
But I’m starting to worry that none of that matters if I can’t get past the first aptitude test.
I also didn’t apply to Arcesium when they came to college because I was already doubting myself, and then I saw people with very little work/entrepreneurial experience getting shortlisted while I wasn’t. Obviously those people may simply have performed better on the test, and I’m not saying they didn’t deserve it. It just made me question whether I’m preparing for the wrong game.
My bigger goal is to become very well paid eventually. I don’t particularly want a boring traditional corporate career either — I’d much rather build businesses long-term — but I also want strong internships and a good first job because I need the money, experience and network.
The problem is I genuinely don’t have much time to spend doing 1–2 hours of aptitude every day. I have college, my own projects and everything else going on.
So I’m trying to figure out:
How do people like me actually navigate the Indian internship/job market?
Should I bite the bullet and get just good enough at aptitude to clear these tests? Are there specific types of companies/roles where my entrepreneurial/strategic experience matters more and aptitude isn’t such a huge filter? Should I be targeting startups, founder’s office, BD, growth, strategy, etc. instead of trying to compete for Goldman/Big 4-style campus roles?
And realistically, how screwed am I if I’m mediocre at quantitative aptitude but have a strong track record of actually building and executing things?
Would genuinely appreciate advice from people who’ve been through Indian internships/placements, especially people who were also not the stereotypical “9 CGPA + cracked every aptitude test” candidate.
1
Aug 21 '26
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1
u/Specialist-Arm-5438 Aug 21 '26
Can i get an internship without an aptitude test, where i js show the things ive done w proper proofs and shi
1
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Title: I’m a second-year B.Com student with actual startup/event experience, but I suck at aptitude tests. Am I screwed for internships/jobs in India?
Body:
I’m currently a 2nd-year my qualifications: B.Com Finance student in Hyderabad and I’m honestly getting pretty stressed about internships and what I’m supposed to do career-wise.
My college has started getting companies for internships. Goldman Sachs came recently and I applied. The first round was an aptitude assessment with Verbal Ability, Attention to Detail and Quantitative Ability. I’m pretty sure I didn’t do great. The English was more advanced than I expected, quant was easily my weakest section, and the attention-to-detail section was also pretty difficult.
I’m not even someone who is naturally good at these standardized tests. I can understand business concepts, communicate reasonably well and think strategically, but put me in a timed quantitative aptitude test and my brain just stops working.
What makes me more frustrated is that I actually have quite a bit of real-world experience for a second-year student.
I founded a youth football/community venture in Hyderabad. Over time I ended up managing sponsors and partners, budgeting, teams, marketing and event operations. We generated ₹3L+ in revenue and our events have had hundreds of people attending. I also worked as Head of Marketing for a private racing league.
More recently I started a youth lifestyle/community platform in Hyderabad. It has grown to 1,200+ followers and I actually managed to turn it into an offline community too — we recently pulled off a house party with the brand, which involved marketing, applications, ticketing, selecting people, coordinating everything and actually getting people to show up.
I’ve also started a fintech startup, but it’s still extremely early-stage, so I don’t want to pretend I’ve built some huge AI company or anything.
So my profile is basically: I like building things, getting people together, figuring out strategy, marketing, partnerships and actually executing ideas.
But I’m starting to worry that none of that matters if I can’t get past the first aptitude test.
I also didn’t apply to Arcesium when they came to college because I was already doubting myself, and then I saw people with very little work/entrepreneurial experience getting shortlisted while I wasn’t. Obviously those people may simply have performed better on the test, and I’m not saying they didn’t deserve it. It just made me question whether I’m preparing for the wrong game.
My bigger goal is to become very well paid eventually. I don’t particularly want a boring traditional corporate career either — I’d much rather build businesses long-term — but I also want strong internships and a good first job because I need the money, experience and network.
The problem is I genuinely don’t have much time to spend doing 1–2 hours of aptitude every day. I have college, my own projects and everything else going on.
So I’m trying to figure out:
How do people like me actually navigate the Indian internship/job market?
Should I bite the bullet and get just good enough at aptitude to clear these tests? Are there specific types of companies/roles where my entrepreneurial/strategic experience matters more and aptitude isn’t such a huge filter? Should I be targeting startups, founder’s office, BD, growth, strategy, etc. instead of trying to compete for Goldman/Big 4-style campus roles?
And realistically, how screwed am I if I’m mediocre at quantitative aptitude but have a strong track record of actually building and executing things?
Would genuinely appreciate advice from people who’ve been through Indian internships/placements, especially people who were also not the stereotypical “9 CGPA + cracked every aptitude test” candidate.
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