How to leverage your career with Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs?
We can all agree that entrepreneurship is the last decade’s most wide-spread buzzword. Incubators are created for fresh minds. Venture capital investments are raising. Governments are announcing initiatives for the support of entrepreneurs. This is the perfect situation for newly grads and for people who want to leverage their careers whether they are entrepreneurs or not. But how?
If you are one of those people and also live in a member state or a partner country of the EU, I have a good news for you. European Union has the initiative to support you: Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs. The main idea behind is simple. EU wants you to develop and educate yourself on the job, so you can take part Europe’s development as a qualified entrepreneur/ intrapreneur.
Now let’s see how the program works. EU created a platform that works just like a social media for entrepreneurs. EU helps new entrepreneurs and host entrepreneurs to find each other. It plays an active role between them to create a relationship and supports new entrepreneurs (us) during this relationship. As a result, a new entrepreneur can travel to host entrepreneur’s country and work with them for 2 to 6 months. Of course, the bureaucracy is still too intense. It forces you to deal with paperwork and everything. But I can say that it’s worth it.
5 main benefits of the program
- Ability to analyze a foreign country’s business culture: This is one of the most essential achievements. We live in a tiny world since internet bloomed. Everything around us is international and/or has international aspects. To be successful in this era, we should be able to understand other cultures. Is there any easier way to learn that other than working in a foreign country?
- Establishing survival skills: This is not a zombie apocalypse kind of survival skill of course, but I find it essential. Going to another country is a whole new level of challenging yourself. However, working and adapting to local lifestyle forces you to leave your comfort zone. I know that leaving our comfort zone is scary. But outside that bubble, you can find a bunch of opportunities. This program will definitely help to blast your bubble.
- Experience: We all know that companies are looking for experienced employees but they don’t understand the fact that we need to start somewhere to gain experience. A well-planned Erasmus program can teach you all the necessary skills you need in professional life.
- Career change: To me, this is the most important benefit. The business world is not very forgiving towards those who want to change careers. And it can be painful to make a 180º career change. Especially when you have other responsibilities in life… But with government incentives like Erasmus, all you have to do is find a relevant host entrepreneur to learn new skills in your life.
- Entrepreneurship: This is the main purpose of the program. Most of the host entrepreneurs are SMEs. And most of the new entrepreneurs are the people who have their own start-up ideas. So this program offers a unique opportunity for both sides: learning from each other.
Conclusion
If you are one of the below:
- Newly grad who has no idea what to do with their life,
- Aspiring entrepreneur/intrapreneur,
- An aspiring career shifter,
- Someone who wants to experience a foreign business environment,
- A citizen of the EU or an EU partner county,
You should check Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs program. It will help you to leverage your career and give you a lot of work and life experience.
In the next topic, I will write about the application process of Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs.
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/kodpreneur
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emre-demirel-84a7ba142/
