It was the next step in the DEHOGA Brandenburg cooperation with the colleagues from the Metropolitan College Athens.
As part of the association’s activities to internationalise vocational training in Europe and inspired by our work in the TourX project, the DEHOGA Brandenburg wanted to take the opportunity to further promote the Brandenburg hospitality industry for student internships in hotels and resorts.
Under the slogan of our actual ERASMUS+ projects, ‘Brandenburg – the next step in your career’, the Kongresshotel Potsdam and the Esplanade Hotel & Resort Bad Saarow presented their current internship offers for students and graduates of this educational institution.
More than 200 students from the Metropolitan College (a private college in Athens, Greece) were waiting for the career fair to open on the morning of 13 February; more than 30 providers from various Greek hotel chains had travelled to the event to talk to the future graduates of the class of 2025.
The Brandenburg hotels were therefore in a challenging competitive situation.
This career day had been prepared well in advance by the management of the Hospitality & Tourism faculty of the Metropolitan College, and DEHOGA Brandenburg began discussions with Brandenburg hotels about participating in the event as early as late summer last year.
On this career day, the students had a wide range of future jobs to choose from and a diverse range of opportunities. So the question of the morning was: Would Brandenburg be able to prove itself as an interesting internship destination?
Brandenburg's hotels were in demand as discussion partners.
Katrin Wesarg, Director of Operations at the Kongresshotel Potsdam and Kathleen Steinbrecher, Human Resources Assistant at the Esplanade Hotel & Resort Bad Saarow had to answer many questions about job opportunities in Brandenburg. Interviews were conducted with students throughout the day, and interest in internships in Brandenburg grew steadily throughout the day.
There were many discussions both in the morning and afternoon. Previous study results, language skills and personal preferences were scrutinised, creating an interesting picture of the quality of study at the Metropolitan College in Athens.
The Brandenburg hospitality industry will take advantage of the opportunities it has created.
Many thanks to the Dean of the Hospitality & Tourism Faculty, Theodore Benetatos, and his teacher´s team. They were wonderful hosts that day.
The students‘ applications are now the starting point for further work by the HR managers in the Brandenburg hotels, in order to maintain the students’ curiosity about Brandenburg in the upcoming follow-up discussions.
Many steps will be necessary after the trade fair presentation in Athens for young people to take the big step of an internship abroad.
