Diagnostics from the home office: the somewhat different internship at the Recruiting Center Germany
How can an internship with unknown activities and new colleagues be successfully mastered despite hygiene and distance rules? The student Linda Wegmann reports about her somewhat different internship at the Recruiting Center and how you can also gain great experiences in the working world from the room in your own flat share.
A somewhat different kind of internship is coming to an end: I am Linda Wegmann, a student of business psychology at the University of Applied Sciences in Osnabrück, and from February to August I completed an internship in the field of diagnostics at the Recruiting Center Germany. Originally, a six-month internship at Continental's headquarters in Hanover was planned. In the end, I spent 4 weeks in the office and the other 5 months in the home office due to corona-related contact restrictions - so I can look back on a mainly digital internship.
"It's a real pity for you that you can only work from home" - a statement often heard from my friends. My answer: "Actually, it's not such a big difference.” For me, working in a home office was completely new territory. The first days and weeks were kind of an adventure: How do I organize myself? How do I know what my tasks are? How do I control whether I am doing my tasks correctly? How do I make sure that I am not constantly distracted? When do I take breaks and what are my working hours?
A small selection of questions that were answered during the first weeks in the home office. Basically, the daily work routine continued as usual, only not from the Recruiting Center office, but from my flat and via team meetings.
Input for tasks to be completed and feedback were given in daily calls. For occasional questions, colleagues could be reached quickly via Microsoft Teams. Therefore I could continue to do my tasks as usual. However, it was important that I had to notice myself when I was stuck and ask someone for advice. After all, you couldn't tell when I was sitting at my desk - I was alone at home.
The digital internship also brought with it completely new tasks and changed processes. For example, I was part of the first assessment center at Continental that was conducted exclusively online. The changeover brought a number of challenges that could be overcome with creativity and a little research work.
But one thing is clear: It's a bit of a pity that I was denied many wonderful moments together with my colleagues. The daily chitchat about God and the world during our lunch breaks was replaced by a chat with the roommates. In fact, I was very happy not to be completely alone, but to have someone to share with every now and then during a short break. The social contacts are the big losers in the digital internship after all. But I guess that this feeling was and still is generally formative for the time during the Corona pandemic.
Despite the unpredictable changes in the course of my internship, I was able to learn a lot of new things and gather important knowledge for my future path. My expectations were more than fulfilled. Thanks to the colleagues from the Recruiting Center for the great digital support.
With this in mind - stay healthy and see you next time!
This article was written by our employee
Linda Wegmann
