Übung macht den Meister
Internship in Germany: where, when, why?
After I finished another German language course, got a visa and a relatively “free year”, I faced the question: what I should do during this year.
There were a few options — I could apply for the FSJ Program (I will write a separate post about it), get a part time job for students (the range of which was not that wide) or find a practice training program in the field of communications design, which would help me enter universities.
I chose the third variant and let me explain why — practice training is as legit record for one’s resume as secondary education is. Practice training is an opportunity to learn and understand how people work in the field one wants to get into, how they make decisions, what to pay attention to, how a working week goes. Additionally, practice training is an essential requirement for being admitted to communications design schools in most high schools in Germany.
There are two options, at least in design — either small offices of three or four people, or large media agencies with many parallel projects, several built teams and strict labor discipline. Since the Germans do not usually limit themselves to only one training program, one can go through both these company types to feel the difference in practice and understand what kind of work is right for him/her.
I decided to start with a small office, because in this case a trainee has to solve not only applied problems in design, but also is heavily involved in the conception development, management, correspondence with customers and learns how to present design projects.
Basically, all the offices are looking for trainees accordingly to the beginning of school semesters — from September/October and from March/April; the training duration can vary, but usually it lasts four-six months. Six months is a practical semester, usually the third or fifth in high schools, when students are engaged in practical activities, so there’s no use nourishing hopes that after this six-month contract you will be invited to work full-time; this system is well-organized and trainees replace each other twice a year.
You won’t be paid a lot as a trainee. Standard wages range from 300 to 500 Euros according to Munich. In Berlin you can get no payment at all, because money is not considered to be the main reason why you come to work as a trainee. In the opinion of an employer, experience, knowledge and contacts play a much more important role.
I was looking for practice training twice, and now I have two ways to find one and they work.
The first one is looking on http://designmadeingermany.de, there is a training section featuring vacancies from a variety of agencies, the most part of which are reliable and good, so I trust this website. By the way, moving to another city for training is considered absolutely normal, so take this into account. However, usually employers will neither help you find housing nor pay your travel expenses.
The second way is to search this very website but in the section with a list of all creative agencies city-wise, and go to their websites because many offices post job listings only on their official websites and do not use any third-party services. You can also look through Facebook and search groups and public pages of design companies.
Of course, you can try to use all sorts of huge aggregators for practice training http://www.meinpraktikum.de , http://www.praktikumsanzeigen.info. However, I never had the patience for it, because it’s a “from hand to hand” scheme.
In a listing, representatives of the office write who they want to get, what they offer and how to contact them. Understandably, they have numerous requirements, but it does not mean that you have to be a superman — this is training, not the top management.
It is important to properly prepare documents for the very first contact with the employer. If the listing is written informally, it is ok to write a cover letter is the same manner, but do not get too carried away: a sense of humor is different with different people. In any case, it is necessary to have a cover letter and a resume — for example, in the form of a table or some creative variation; sometimes, if you see that the employer needs it — you can enclose your secondary and/or high school diploma, especially if you already have been granted a degree in an interesting field.
I wrote a letter in English mentioning that I know German. Not everyone is ready to talk with you in English all day long, it is necessary to clarify these issues in advance.
Here is what I wrote in my cover letter, when I was searching for my first practice training.
I received several invitations to interviews, which were very, very informal. I spoke German a little, so everyone was happy. Later it proved to be a false impression — if your practice training involves personal contact with clients, large volumes of correspondence and many speaking sessions — first of all, think if your language skills are good enough, or else you will feel completely ill at ease.
During the first meeting, the discussion goes around your portfolio, the office tells you about itself, you tell them about yourself, and usually it becomes immediately clear if you fit or not. Then you discuss working terms and conditions, wages and sign the contract. At this point you should have a social security number, tax identification number and insurance. All this sounds scary, but is actually easy to get. By the way, you can safely ask your employer for help.
The contract will specify the probation period which is important, since it is not a convention as it is in Russia. In a month or two you will have a Feedback Talk, where you will discuss your strengths and weaknesses, if you fit the team, the way you deal with problems; and you will tell the employer how to feel as a fresh trainee.
All in all, I strongly recommend having a training as soon as you have some free time (the training schedule is usually full-time, five days a week; however, everything is negotiable), because it’s a really cool experience and a practical test drive for your future life.
