Overview (what this article is and how to use it)
This is a deep, practical guide aimed at students and recent grads who wanted — in the extraordinary year of 2020 — to land internships or convert internships into full-time roles at three global employers: Procter & Gamble (P&G), Baidu, and Tencent. It blends what these companies offered (typical roles, locations), how COVID-19 changed recruiting in 2020 (virtual internships and online assessment pivots), how hiring funnels worked, and step-by-step, field-tested tips and sample answers you could use for applications and interviews. Wherever useful I cite primary company pages and high-quality reporting.
If you want to use this as a template for other years: keep the process, test types, and interview craft — those are mostly stable. Dates, exact program names, and the size of hiring drives can and do change, so always check the company careers page when applying.
1. Quick snapshot: who hires what, where, and why it mattered in 2020
P&G (consumer goods — marketing, supply chain, R&D, IT, finance)
P&G runs a structured student pipeline: internships, co-ops, management trainee and entry-level positions, and the company treats internships as a major feeder into full-time hiring. In 2020 P&G moved many internship cohorts to virtual formats and leaned heavily on online assessments and structured interviews. (PG Careers, Forbes)
Baidu (China search & AI leader — research, software engineering, data science)
Baidu’s campus and intern programs focus on technical tracks (ML/NLP/vision, autonomous driving, cloud), plus product, design and management-support roles. Baidu runs a formal campus recruitment calendar (online application windows, technical tests, interviews) and has long had targeted programs for AI talent (e.g., management-trainee and “AIDU / Polaris” style programs). In 2020 Baidu continued campus recruiting (with adjusted logistics for the pandemic). (Nankai University AI Institute, Baidu Research)
Tencent (platforms, games, cloud, AI — engineering, product, research, business ops)
Tencent runs a global campus-recruit program and summer internship cycles spanning games, AI, cloud services, product management, and business functions. In 2020 Tencent kept recruiting (and like peers, shifted many interactions online) and continued to use campus outreach as a major source of junior hires. (Tencent Careers, LinkedIn)
2. What changed in 2020 (COVID era): virtual internships, online assessments, and new expectations
2020 was a pivot year. The pandemic forced firms to redesign internship and campus hiring to be virtual-first or hybrid:
Implication for applicants: digital presence, remote-work readiness, and comfort with online assessments/interviews became as important as domain skills. Recruiters assessed not just technical skills but the ability to communicate, self-manage, and deliver results remotely.
- P&G publicly documented the conversion of its summer 2020 internship program into a virtual experience, building structured remote learning, mentoring, and project work for interns. That meant the company invested in digital onboarding, remote projects, and manager training to manage virtual interns. (Forbes)
- Baidu and Tencent continued campus recruitment but adapted events (info sessions, interviews, even coding tests) to remote and online formats; technical competitions, remote hackathons and virtual case events replaced many in-person evaluation moments. University and media reports from 2020 show students still landing remote internships at these companies. (Nankai University AI Institute, University of Westminster)
3. Typical roles & teams (where interns and new grads landed)
Below are the common functional buckets and concrete role examples you’d expect in 2020 for each company.
P&G — typical intern/full-time functions
- Marketing & Brand Management — brand intern, assistant brand manager trainee
- Sales & Customer Business Development — sales internships, route-to-market analysts
- Supply Chain & Manufacturing Engineering — supply chain intern, process engineer
- R&D & Consumer Science — formulation scientist intern, consumer insights intern
- IT & Digital — software engineer intern, data analyst
- Finance & HR — financial analyst intern, HR rotational roles.
P&G’s internships served as its primary pipeline into early-career roles. (PG Careers, Procter & Gamble)
Baidu — typical intern/full-time functions
- AI Research (NLP, CV, Speech) — research intern, algorithm intern
- Software Engineering — backend/frontend/mobile intern
- Autonomous Driving & Robotics — perception/controls intern
- Cloud & Infra — site reliability, data platform interns
- Product & UX — PM intern, UX research intern.
Baidu emphasized recruiting technical graduates into research and platform roles. (Baidu Research, Nankai University AI Institute)
Tencent — typical intern/full-time functions
- Games & Entertainment — game dev, gameplay engineer, level designer interns
- AI & Research — ML engineer intern, recommendation/algorithms intern
- Product & Operations — product intern, operations analyst
- Cloud & Fintech — cloud devops, payments engineering interns
- Business & Marketing — partnerships, brand ops interns. (Tencent Careers, Tencent)
4. The hiring funnel in 2020 — step by step (what to expect)
Although exact steps vary by company and role, the typical funnel for these companies in 2020 looked like this:
- Awareness & Campus Outreach — university fairs, official careers pages, social channels, and employee referrals. (Use campus events and alumni networks.) (PG Careers, Tencent Careers)
- Online Application (resume + short Qs) — upload resume, transcripts may be requested, fill out screening questions.
- Automated Screening / Online Assessment — psychometric + situational judgement + job-specific tests (P&G is notable for its “Peak” online assessment / digital tests). For technical roles the test often includes coding/algorithmic problems or MCQ technical screens. (PG Careers, Graduates First)
- Phone / Video Screening — short behavioral and motivation checks.
- Technical Assessment / Coding Task / Case — timed coding exercise, take-home task, or live coding interview (for technical roles), or marketing/business case presentation (for brand/sales tracks).
- Final Panel / Onsite (virtual in 2020) — multiple interviewers across functions; often includes a culture fit and role depth interview.
- Offer & Onboarding — conversion offers for interns to move into graduate roles, or direct full-time offers from campus hiring pipelines.
Note about P&G assessments: P&G’s online evaluation package (often called “P&G assessment” / Peak assessment) is a deterministic filter early in the process — many candidates fail or pass at this stage. Preparation (practice tests, situational judgement prep, familiarization with P&G case styles) helps. (PG Careers, Practice Aptitude Tests)
5. Application prep: resumes, cover letters, and what really moves the needle
Resume basics that work at P&G, Baidu, Tencent (2020):
- Keep it 1 page (students) or 2 pages (extensive relevant experience). Recruiters scan fast.
- Lead with impact: bullet points should show results (metrics, e.g., “raised weekly active users by 18% in 6 weeks” or “reduced process time from 24h to 6h”). Numbers stand out.
- Show role fit: for brand roles at P&G emphasize consumer insight projects, marketing campaigns, A/B test experience; for Baidu/Tencent emphasize coding projects, model performance, open-source contributions, Kaggle results, or research publications.
- Highlight teamwork & ownership: employers in 2020 looked for autonomous execution in remote settings — show projects where you shipped results with limited supervision.
Cover letter / application essay tips
- Use the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) pattern to concisely demonstrate a single example of leadership or problem-solving.
- For P&G, weave in consumer obsession — show you thought about consumers in a concrete way. For Baidu/Tencent, show technical depth and curiosity (link to GitHub or papers).
LinkedIn & online profiles
- Make your LinkedIn headline precise (e.g., “CS Senior | ML + MLOps | TensorFlow, PyTorch | Seeking Summer 2020 Internships”) and keep GitHub/portfolio links current. Recruiters search. (PG Careers)
6. A close look at assessment types & how to prepare (company-specific)
P&G — assessments and interviews
- P&G online assessment suite: includes situational judgement, logic/problem solving (switch/grid/digit puzzles historically), and video or written behavioral prompts. P&G emphasizes potential for Leadership and Brand Management through structured assessment. Practice on timed psychometric tests and sample P&G case prompts. (PG Careers, Graduates First)
- Case & behavioral interviews: prepare brand/case frameworks and STAR stories. Expect a panel for final rounds.
Prep checklist for P&G
- Practice P&G-style online puzzles (pattern recognition, situational responses).
- Draft 6–8 concise STAR stories that map to leadership, problem solving, influence, and results orientation.
- For marketing roles, prepare a short brand critique (why it works, what you’d change).
Baidu — technical screens & research internships
- Technical coding tests: typically algorithmic (data structures, algorithms) — prepare LeetCode medium/hard and practice timed coding.
- Research roles: expect a deeper dive on ML fundamentals, model architectures, papers you’ve worked on, and a technical presentation in some cases.
- Product/design roles: product sense and core metrics focus.
Prep checklist for Baidu
- Strengthen algorithm practice (LeetCode, system design basics for senior roles).
- Prepare a research/project talk: dataset, task, model, results, ablations.
- Have links to code or reproducible experiments.
Tencent — games, AI, cloud, product
- Games roles: engine & gameplay coding tasks; portfolio and playable demos help.
- AI & recommendation: modeling, ranking metrics, feature engineering.
- Product & ops: product case interviews and cross-functional communication examples.
Prep checklist for Tencent
- Build a short playable demo or project for gaming roles.
- Practice recommendation system questions and offline/online metric tradeoffs.
- Prepare examples of cross-team delivery and feature launches.
7. Timeline & conversion: internship → full-time in 2020
Typical timeline (academic year 2019–2020 cohort running into summer 2020):
- Sept–Nov 2019: early campus outreach and applications for 2020 hiring streams.
- Dec–Feb 2020: interviews and assessments for some programs (timelines moved in 2020).
- March–June 2020: many internships originally planned for summer were shifted to virtual programs (onboarding in June/July; project work over 8–12 weeks). P&G’s reporting on the 2020 cohort showed explicit virtual intern structures. (Forbes)
- Aug–Oct 2020: conversion interviews and offers for interns, plus campus hiring for the next year.
Conversion rates (general advice)
- P&G historically converts a significant portion of interns into full-time hires (internships are a primary pipeline). While companies don’t publish exact rates globally, company messaging and HR blogs emphasize that internships are the primary feeder into early careers. For Baidu and Tencent, conversion depends heavily on project impact and business needs — interns who shipped feature-quality work had the best chance. (Procter & Gamble, Baidu Research)
8. Remote-work game: delivering impact as a virtual intern (lessons from 2020)
If you found yourself in a fully remote internship (the norm in 2020), here’s how to stand out:
- Over-communicate — daily or twice-daily check-ins, clear async updates, and a weekly summary emailed to your manager.
- Deliver artifacts — produce a written handoff, reproducible scripts, tests, a slide deck for stakeholders. Tangible outputs translate into conversion offers.
- Own the demo — set a demo date early and iterate publicly. Demos create accountability.
- Build relationships remotely — ask for 15-minute coffee chats with team members; volunteer to write sprint notes or document tutorials (valuable and visible).
- Ask for success criteria — in your first week, clarify the top 3 outcomes that will make your manager recommend you for a full-time role.
P&G’s virtual intern pivot offers useful lessons: structured mentor programs, short weekly learning modules, and team sprints made virtual internships meaningful in 2020. (Forbes)
9. Visa, location & global hire notes (for non-local applicants)
P&G
- P&G hires globally; internship and early-career roles are regionally located. International students in the U.S., Europe, or Asia often enter through local business units and local work-authorization rules. Always check the P&G regional careers page for visa sponsorship notes. (PG Careers)
Baidu & Tencent
- These companies are China-based but have international offices (Baidu Research in the U.S., Tencent offices globally). Many campus roles are country-specific (Beijing/Shanghai/Shenzhen). Interns from abroad often needed local work permits or were hired through local offices. If you require visa sponsorship, apply to roles explicitly marked “international” or at regional offices (Baidu USA, Tencent US teams). (usa.baidu.com, Tencent Careers)
Practical tip: If you’re an international student, clarify sponsorship policies early (HR/recruiter), and tailor applications to locations where the company has a hiring presence that supports foreigners (U.S./Europe/APAC hubs).
10. Example questions & model answers — practice bank (technical + behavioral)
Below are sample prompts you could see in 2020 and model ways to answer them.
Sample behavioral (P&G style) — “Tell me about a time you influenced a team to change direction.”
Model (STAR) answer (short):
- Situation: Our university coding team was building an app but missed user validation.
- Task: I was tasked to decide whether to pivot to a simpler MVP or continue feature expansion.
- Action: I organized a 48-hour user-feedback sprint: 20 short remote interviews + in-app analytics, then mapped results to impact vs. effort. I presented the findings in a 10-minute demo to the team and proposed focusing on three core flows.
- Result: The pivot reduced dev time by 40% and increased trial-to-retention by 22% in the next cohort. The approach showed consumer focus, data support, and decisive leadership — qualities P&G emphasizes.
Sample technical (Baidu/Tencent) — “Given a dataset of user clicks, how would you evaluate a ranking model?”
Short outline answer:
- Define offline metrics (NDCG, MAP) and business metrics (CTR, conversion).
- Use A/B testing framework for online validation; consider latency and fairness constraints.
- Implement logging and tools to compute per-bucket metrics, and apply interleaving or bootstrap to test significance.
(For coding interviews, walk through code clearly while narrating choices; communicate edge cases and complexity.)
11. A 2020-era recruiter’s checklist: what they looked for
Recruiters at these companies in 2020 were typically checking for:
- Role fit & skill match (tech depth for Baidu/Tencent; consumer and analytical skills for P&G).
- Results orientation — did you ship? (artifacts matter: code, papers, portfolio).
- Learning agility & curiosity — evidence you can learn fast (courses, side projects, research).
- Communication & remote readiness — clear, concise asynchronous communication examples.
- Culture & values fit — P&G stresses leadership and consumer focus; Baidu/Tencent look for problem-solvers who can work in fast product cycles.
12. Networking & referrals: how to get a foot in the door (2020 tactics)
- Alumni & campus ambassadors: reach out to alumni who interned — ask for an informational 15-minute chat. In 2020 many alumni were sympathetic to help students navigate virtual recruiting.
- Employee referral programs: many large firms prioritize internal referrals — polite, concise outreach helps.
- Competitions & hackathons: Baidu, Tencent often source talent from contests or student competitions (game jams, algorithm contests). Winning teams sometimes get interviews or internship offers. (Tencent, campus.baidu.com)
13. A short case study: how a virtual P&G intern converted in 2020
Profile: Marketing major, small brand team, virtual internship (Summer 2020).
What they did differently: set weekly ownerable experiments (two A/B tests per week on micro-copy), wrote concise weekly dashboards emailed to stakeholders, and produced a final “go-to-market” kit that the brand manager used to brief the regional BU.
Outcome: strong feedback loop + visible deliverables → returned offer for a full-time rotational role. (P&G’s emphasis on structured virtual intern programs in 2020 helped managers track intern impact.) (Forbes, Procter & Gamble)
14. Common pitfalls & how to avoid them
Pitfall 1: treating virtual interviews like in-person ones
- Fix: over-prepare tech (camera, mic), practice concise answers, and master the art of narrating your screen and code.
Pitfall 2: weak artifacts
- Fix: commit polished code, datasets, presentations — deliverables are easier to evaluate remotely.
Pitfall 3: ignoring company language
- Fix: P&G uses “consumer-obsessed” language; Baidu/Tencent use “research rigor / product-driven” language. Mirror it appropriately.
Pitfall 4: failing to follow up
- Fix: send a short thank-you note with 1–2 follow-up data points or clarifications after interviews.
15. Resources & where to apply (2020 references you would check)
- P&G Careers — Internships & Student Programs. Use the regional P&G careers pages to find roles and assessment info. (PG Careers)
- P&G Assessment Overview (Peak assessments) — official guidance on online assessment structure. (PG Careers)
- Forbes: P&G’s 2020 virtual internship approach — shows how P&G redesigned internships during COVID-19. (Forbes)
- Baidu Campus & Research Careers — official channels for internship & campus recruiting. (talent.baidu.com, Baidu Research)
- Tencent Careers / Campus Recruitment — global campus info and role categories. (Tencent Careers)
16. Appendix — sample resume bullets & interview cheat sheet
Resume bullets (pick ones that match you):
- “Led a 3-person team to build an image-tagging model that improved F1 score by 12% on baseline; deployed pipeline including data collection and model monitoring.”
- “Launched a campus marketing campaign that increased event attendance from 80→240 (200% growth) and captured 300+ new leads.”
- “Reduced build time of analytics reports from 6 hours to 45 minutes by automating ETL scripts in Python and Airflow.”
Interview prep mini-plan (4 weeks):
- Week 1: polish resume + 6 STAR stories; apply to 10 target roles.
- Week 2: algorithm practice (60–90 mins/day) + one mock behavioral.
- Week 3: case practice (brand/product) + portfolio clean-up.
- Week 4: full mock interviews (technical + behavioral) and follow up with real applications.
17. Final checklist before you hit “submit” (short & actionable)
- One-page resume with metrics and role alignment.
- GitHub/portfolio link present and working.
- 6 STAR stories in a document (copy/paste into application essays when needed).
- Practice P&G online puzzles or company-specific assessment samples for 30–60 minutes. (PG Careers, Practice Aptitude Tests)
- Reach out to one alumnus/employee for a referral.
18. Closing: why P&G, Baidu, Tencent internships mattered in 2020 — and beyond
2020 tested the resilience of campus hiring systems. Companies that adapted — by building structured virtual internship experiences, refining online assessment fidelity, and investing in remote onboarding — maintained the crucial pipeline from student to professional. P&G used virtual internship design principles to preserve learning and conversion; Baidu and Tencent continued to recruit and invest in technical talent despite disruption, emphasizing the importance of remote deliverables and online assessments. For applicants, the overarching lesson of 2020 is simple: ship visible work, communicate relentlessly, and practice the assessment formats companies use. Those behaviors converted well in 2020 — and they continue to matter.
If you’d like, I can:
- Expand this into a downloadable 10-page PDF checklist + resume template, or
- Produce company-specific mock interview scripts (10 behavioral + 10 technical) tailored to P&G, Baidu, and Tencent, or
- Draft 6 STAR stories for you based on your background — just paste 4–5 resume bullets and I’ll convert them.
Key sources used
- P&G Careers — internships & student programs (P&G official). (PG Careers)
- P&G assessment overview (Peak assessments / online test). (PG Careers)
- Forbes: “P&G Paves Path For Meaningful Virtual Internship Experience” (July 2020). (Forbes)
- Baidu campus recruitment pages & Baidu Research careers (official). (talent.baidu.com, Baidu Research)
- Tencent Campus Recruitment / career pages and campus posts. (Tencent Careers, LinkedIn)
If you want the full downloadable package (PDF checklist, resume template, eight targeted STAR stories, and 20 mock interview questions with model answers) say “Yes — package” and I’ll assemble everything into a clean, printer-ready document for you.
