Some students at FHWS may have participated in a Career Service workshop, simulated salary negotiations, practiced interviews or had ideal application photos taken. But perhaps some others are asking: where and when is that? How do you register? An overview of the FHWS Career Service.
Laura Schnaus, head of the Career Service at FHWS, describes it like this: every student has a “student life cycle” – and the Career Service supports students in the final part of this cycle: stepping into working life. “FHWS and I don’t want to simply leave students on their own when they leave FHWS, press the certificate into their hands and then leave them to find out for themselves how to cope and find their feet in the job market.” That’s why the Career Service was created. In short, the Career Service is the central facility for supporting students in their later career path. “Because if there is student guidance before a degree, there should also be something for afterwards,” says Schnaus.
There are all sorts of offerings for this, which are divided into two categories: the first is individual counselling. “Here, I have discussions, support them with individual questions, help them to discover skills or to find jobs, look at application documents and simulate interviews,” says Laura Schnaus. She took over the Career Service three and a half years ago and has been passionate about it ever since. “The advisory service that I provide is very close to my heart because I find it incredibly exciting to support young people in taking the step into a career.” The second category of the Career Service is a programme of workshops and events which is offered every year in collaboration with companies and independent speakers.
Contact with industry and business
“I offer long-runners like salary negotiation training practically every semester – but there are also always new events and collaborations as well,” says Schnaus. The range of workshops is broad: they run from traditional application training through professional design of LinkedIn or Xing profiles to effective self-marketing. Above all, Schnaus wants to cover what the students want here: “I am always delighted to get feedback and suggestions, because that’s the only way I can create offerings which really help the students.” The offering is free for students and they can attend as many events as they like.
The workshops and events are generally run by external speakers. Here, FHWS also collaborates with companies so that students can make valuable contacts in industry and business along the way. Petra Donner, head of university marketing at ALTEN GmbH, coordinates the collaboration with FHWS for her company and also holds workshops herself. The special thing about the talks is “that the students get tips that they would not otherwise have got.” The engineering service provider ALTEN has been working together with FHWS for several years. Naturally also because it is a good opportunity to establish contact with the students. At the time, the company sought the collaboration “because FHWS is a very relevant higher education institution for us since it has many students with good technical training,” says Petra Donner. A good collaboration quickly developed here.
The salary negotiation training was also a suggestion from ALTEN. “We offer a catalogue of topics every year and Ms Schnaus immediately found the salary negotiation training interesting.” Since then, both women say it is the topic which is best received. They will therefore definitely be offering it for the next years as well. Donner enjoys the interaction with the students the most: “This type of talk thrives on student participation: we don’t want a classroom teaching style, but rather to create a dialogue in which the participants ask questions and discuss with us.”
Popular with students
Participant numbers for the Career Service events have increased significantly of late. “It may also be because of online teaching. Participation from any location is often easier for students than in-person events. And for me too.” Because rooms at FHWS are limited and were often fully booked in the past, meaning that Schnaus could only accommodate twenty students instead of fifty. This problem doesn’t exist online – there are no capacity constraints here. Which is why Schnaus is hoping to continue online events in the future, at least to some extent: “Formats which thrive on exchange, group exercises and interactivity, like rhetoric training for example, are better carried out in person.” These formats happen in smaller groups with about eight to ten students. For other events – which work well online – up to 50 people can participate.
