- Continental, Oliver Wyman and the Federal Employment Agency are supporting young jobseekers
- Successful pilot project by Continental gives young adults new prospects
- “Experiencing Europe” initiative will be rolled out across Germany
Under the umbrella of “Experiencing Europe,” the plan is for more German companies to now take part in order to enable more young people to access Europe. At the kick-off in Munich, the program was introduced with representatives from several major companies such as Allianz, BMW, DHL, Linde, Telekom and Schaeffler.
According to Finja Carolin Kütz, head of Germany/Austria at strategic consultancy firm Oliver Wyman and co-initiator of “Experiencing Europe,” a lot of other success stories should follow: “We want to roll out the initiative across a broad area and convince other companies to take part in ‘Experiencing Europe.’ The program offers added value not only for young people, but also for the participating companies and European integration.”
Getting young adults on board
Young adults often have difficulty in gaining a foothold in professional life – for example, if they grow up in households in which the parents are unemployed. The Federal Employment Agency supports the initiative by being responsible for pre-selecting participants on behalf of employers. Detlef Scheele, chairman of the Executive Board at the Federal Employment Agency, explains that “young jobseekers often have gaps in their CVs and find it difficult to get into the job market. Practical experience abroad not only opens up new doors for them, but also gives them completely new confidence.”
Together for the future of Europe
The initiators want to motivate more companies to join “Experiencing Europe” and are agreed that “together, we can make a major contribution to European integration with our initiative and for this reason, we’re looking forward to joining forces. Today’s event is an important step toward this.” If it works, more interns will soon be sent to other EU countries and will come back with an attractive entry in their CVs and fresh ideas.
About “Experiencing Europe”
As part of the initiative launched by Continental and Oliver Wyman, participating companies offer young adults who are aged 18 to 25 and have few professional prospects short internships at various locations elsewhere in Europe. The participants will visit two countries in four weeks, completing a two-week internship in each. Local employees will act as host families. In addition, at each location, there will also be a buddy close to the participant’s own age to provide free-time activities. This allows the interns make lots of new contacts and obtain valuable insights into the respective country.
Further information can be found at:
www.ExperiencingEurope.eu,
www.facebook.com/ExperiencingEU and
https://twitter.com/ExperiencingEU