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The road to success is not always a straight line. There are many twists and turns involved, some screaming and beautiful scenery.

Top employers offer secret international internships. You do not know for which internship or employer you could be the best fit. You apply for all of them with only one CV! Check out more on Blind Applying

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Variety Of Tasks & Happy Smiles. Sounds Like A Day At Coca-Cola.

Our champion Laura at Coca-Cola Erfrischungsgetränke got support! Tanja, our 2nd Blind Applying champion is now joining the New Ventures Marketing team at the company’s Berlin hub. From now on they will blog together about their Coca-Cola adventure.

Check out how their challenging but exciting workdays look like, get to know their Berlin colleagues and don’t miss the 3 key takeaways of what they have learnt so far during their ‪#‎internship‬.

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It is a funny thing about life-if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it.

W. Somerset Maugham (via forbes)

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From Paris To Shanghai And Back. The Tale Of Two Cities.

Two metropolises with fancy buildings, flashing lights and busy commute. And this is where the similarities end.

Erran has been studying in Paris and is doing her internship at the Shanghai office of Stora Enso. To read more on the cultural differences between the two cities, check out her blog.

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Time For A Throwback

(by Justin Stegmaier)

Two weeks ago my 2 month internship in LEAN Production Management at Siemens Power & Gas in Görlitz has ended - and I think that it’s time for a throwback now.

In the end I wish that it would have been longer, because there are so many more things I would like to learn more about. Anyway, it was a great time, finishing my own project successfully, getting to know the Siemens headquarter of steam turbine manufacturing worldwide and gaining a lot of knowledge in Logistics and LEAN Management.

Two months full of highlights

In my opinion “just” these two months were full of great moments and I’ll take along a lot of experiences.

After finishing this internship I am able to say that I’ve finished my first LEAN Project in the Logistics department and I’m very glad that it has ended successfully, because sometimes it was a path of trial and tribulation. In many cases the software did not do what I wanted it to do or my supervisors had different opinions on how to face upcoming challenges than I had.

Thanks to cooperative work with my colleagues and supervisors, we have solved all problems and there is an optimized tool in the logistic department to report stocks. That was the biggest challenge I’ve faced and it’s the one which makes me most proud of.

Another highlight was the 1:1 training in LEAN Methods I’ve received. One of my supervisors took a whole day off to teach me how to realize LEAN-Projects and which methods are most qualified to use for which kind of project.

What will I take along?

It was a great opportunity and a real career adventure. I have gained lots of experiences I will never forget and which are very useful for my future career.

For instance, I think the most important thing I’ve learned during my internship at Siemens is that no mountain is too high to climb. It doesn’t matter how difficult it seems in the first moment. What I want to say: You can handle every challenge, you simply have to work hard for it and believe in oneself.

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Learning Swiftly: How Coding In A New Language Transformed My Skillset As An Engineer

(by Dan Sarnelli)

Over the past few weeks, I have been working on an internal Johnson & Johnson application. Prior to this internship, most of the coding I had done was individual and never really dealt with user interfaces. When you’re coding with a team, you feel much more inclined to keep everything clean and follow good practices. It is important for any team member to look at any piece of code and know exactly what is going on.

Form has to follow function

Most of my experience in school and at home has been with Java, but everything that our team has been working on is in Swift. It can be intimidating to learn a new language, but it has been enjoyable. I’ve found that most of the concepts are the same with differences in syntax, but I have grown to like Swift during the time I’ve spent here.

The ability to work with user interfaces is one crucial skill that I’ve learned. Most classes in school are more concerned with concepts and less so with user interaction. Functional code is only half of the battle. If it isn’t aesthetic, then nobody will feel comfortable using it.

Learning through the challenges

One of the biggest challenges that I have faced while working on the application is the lack of resources that exist in regards to Swift. Languages that I am used to such as Java or C++ have existed for decades and nearly every issue that you could encounter has happened to somebody else before. Swift is only a year old and still has a lot to work out. Not many people are using it at the moment, but it is likely to be very relevant in the future.

The way I have overcome this obstacle has allowed me to develop some important coding skills. I find myself debugging conceptually instead of syntactically. With other languages, it can be far too easy to find the same issue online and copy a line of code. With Swift, you might find yourself researching a similar issue in objective-C and applying it to your situation. While this may not solve the problem as quickly, I find myself developing a better understanding for why the problem arose and how it can be solved.

"A dragster themed stop light, a number of license plates, street signs, and even an area of wires and devices themed to be a wall of tools. These are just some of the interesting touches that make developers truly feel like they are in a garage."

The More you Know...

My inspiration for learning and overcoming obstacles is the ease that comes along with it. Every new language that I learn is even easier than the previous one, and every obstacle I face is one that I’ll never need to solve again. All coding knowledge is cumulative, and the frustration that is involved decreases as your ability improves. The exposure to real world coding that I am getting at Johnson & Johnson has completely transformed my skillset as a computer engineer.

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What is going on in the insurance business?

(by Julia Beiendorf)

My new company, Munich Re, is one of the biggest reinsurance companies in the world. The reinsurance business is an old industry, so I had my first working day at their castle in Munich. The company is very interested in art. They have a big art collection in each building. The most famous one is the “Walking Man” right in front of the headquarter at Leopoldstrasse in the very center of Munich.

I am working for the Green Tech Solutions team of the Special Financial Risk Department. We are an international team with colleagues in Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York. Our aim is to provide insurances for manufacturers, developers, owners and investors of renewable energy projects worldwide. We are not doing the classic reinsurance business. Our contracts are associated with the guarantees and warranties of the project's execution, so our department is established in the reinsurance division of Munich Re.

My team is providing insurances for photovoltaic panel manufacturers and solar park owners, for biomass, batteries and LED. My supervisor and me are especially working on insurance solutions for onshore and offshore wind projects as well as for the owners, developers and component manufacturers and suppliers of such big projects. The motivation and the benefit for coverage against serial losses, available and revenue losses is the better financial situation of the project execution, in terms of financing and reliability of the project.

A lot to learn and discover!

The corporate culture here at Munich Re is different to the one I am used to in the north. The company offers free lunch for all employees. Also it’s not common to go to lunch only with the colleagues from your team, as I was used to from previous internships. Rather you’re invited to ask colleagues from all departments to go for a lunch date. The cuisine here is different as well but I got used to it.

My new cuisine is a bit more pretzel- and beer- focused than it was already. Furthermore I discovered many sorts of beer, I did not know before. As seen on the picture, my favorite the “Augustiner”, the oldest beer brand of Munich. In addition I fell in love with the Bavarian cheese the “Obazda”. You eat together with pretzels and beer and is part of a typical Bavarian “Brotzeit”, as well as a good sausage :)

In Munich you will find so many beer gardens which all serve pretzels and obazda. In the Olympia park where I live now, you will find 4 or 5 just in one park. Munich is a great place to live. My Internship is over in a few weeks and then I will return to Hamburg to start with a master’s program. Thanks Munich Re for a short glimpse at the insurance business and the chance to become more familiar with all the German clichés.

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The hurricanes blew me from the far North …

(by Julia Beiendorf)

With a hurricane on my back, I arrived after 2 days in my car at my new home in Munich. This was the first time I came to Bavaria, except for the few hours job interview three months before. I was very excited to see how Bavarians are, because they represent everything the rest of the world is thinking of Germany - Beer, Sausages & Kraut and Leather trousers. The first days in Munich the weather was very uncertain. I have seen snow falling down, rain, sunshine and everything between.

What do an athlete from Olympia ‘72 and me have in common?

For the period of my internship, I found a small bungalow to live in. So I landed in the so called “Olydorf”. It is the old athletes' village from the Olympics in 1972. Nowadays it is completely restored and a whole village only for students. Here you can find everything you need for your daily life, like grocery stores, bakeries, a laundry, all kind of doctors, restaurants and the “Bierstube”.

The room is a bit small, but on two floors. I had my own bath, a “kitchen” – two plates to cook and a small fridge - and a balcony where the sun is always shining. The view is quite nice …not. They are all standing very close to each other, so you get to know your neighbors quite intense. There is always someone around who will take your packages from the parcel service and if you need milk, eggs, sugar or beer you won’t struggle to find someone to help you out. Furthermore you can nearly get or exchange everything with the village currency: beer.

The bungalow can be painted by the students. Everybody is allowed to paint their own bungalow in the color and pattern they like. Mine will be painted in two weeks, when my good friend Ben is visiting me here in the Olydorf – this was actually Ben's bungalow beforehand.

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Some Weekend Activities In The US

(by Philipp Schodl)

Outside of work everything is going more than well! The last weekends were pretty exciting although all of them involved a lot of driving. Americans pretend that they are used to it, but they call you crazy if you drive more than 1600 kilometer just for a weekend ;-)

So I was one weekend away in Omaha, Nebraska, visiting some friends, who are currently studying there and who I haven’t met for a long time! They showed me around the city and we by coincidence saw that there was a big food tasting festival going on. The city itself and the campus of the university were nice although it wasn’t really crowded as most of the students are gone at the moment. As I’ve heard from several people that the cops usually know the best places to eat, we asked some of them and they recommended us to Stella’s and without any doubt that was definitely the best burger I had so far in the United States!

Another weekend I spent in Nashville, Tennessee, which was a huge surprise! I heard before that there a many bars with live music but the actual amount of live music stages throughout the whole city was just incredible! I was there one week before the Country Music Association Festival, one of the biggest country music festivals, took place, so a lot of preparation works were already ongoing and I could get a glimpse of an idea how crazy it would look like a week later. And if you ever get the chance to get to Nashville, go and visit the Johnny Cash museum!

By a lucky coincidence, I found a really cheap flight to New Orleans, so I could not miss out on this chance to also see a little bit of the southern US. Although it was probably the wrong time to visit New Orleans because it was extremely hot and humid. Nevertheless, it was an incredible experience to explore the haunted city of New Orleans during day and night. So go on a ghost or voodoo tour and learn about the rich history of this amazing town!

We are saving people’s lives on a daily basis at Fresenius!

Haunted New Orleans by night.

As I moved to a new apartment for my last month here in the States I met my new neighbors and they randomly asked me to join them the next day on a road trip to the world famous Niagara Falls. Surprised by this invitation but with the idea of seeing these amazing waterfalls in mind, I accepted their offer right away! I've already seen the Victoria Falls on the border between Zimbabwe and Sambia and was pretty impressed but the Niagara Falls were even more impressive! Especially because you can get really close to the waterfalls but see for yourself on these two short video clips:

It seems like the directors of Game of Thrones got some inspiration from here ;-)

Right on the bottom of the falls… Absolutely incredible experience! Was definitely worth standing in the waiting line for about 2 ½ hours!

Another hint, everybody is telling you the Canadian site is way better than the American but I highly doubt that because you can’t get that close to the falls from the Canadian site and so you will miss out on the most awesome part of this natural wonder! So without a doubt this spontaneous road trip was a blast!

Time passes too quickly and I only have three more weeks to spend here in the US with Fresenius but there is a lot of exciting stuff coming along these weeks and I’ll probably have some kind of surprise for you soon :-)

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Music from an internship - Laura in Berlin

Have a coffee in Alexanderplatz and then a stroll through Tiergarten. We asked Laura to create a playlist for her career adventure at Coca-Cola​ in Berlin. Follow the beats along the Spree river and enjoy!

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The ABC Of HR Marketing

(by Jennifer Mbunga)

I decided I wanted to major in International Management because I always saw myself working in (people) management: leading a team, motivating staff, training and the likes. Really I should have studied Human Resources Management (HRM) instead.

During my academic year in in the U.S. I finally took an HRM class. The intro class to the subject was rooted in labor law (Equal Employment Opportunity which is antidiscrimination laws, etc.). I soon realized that HR is more than just people management. It includes various functional areas such as planning, staffing, developing, compensating and appraising. Human Resources (HR) practitioners are becoming business partners in organizations and the role of personnel as source of competitive advantage is increasing.

My internship at Enterprise has shown me the strategic elements of HR in an organization that considers its people to be the most valuable resource. Implementing some elements of the HR strategy myself, I have learned the following HR ABC, amongst other things.

A FOR ANALYTICS

HR is quantitative. Numbers seem to follow me everywhere. And though they seemed very complex at first when you export them into an Excel workbook, once I got the hang of them, it was clear why tracking candidate engagement online is so important. Analytics is crucial for e-recruiting as it helps take on a more targeted approach for recruiting online. Using free tools like Google Analytics helps identify which job boards, career networks, etc. bring in the most traffic and applications. In order to track how many people come to your website and where they came from, cookies are added to a URL link.

Analytics is also very useful for SEO (search engine optimization) as it allows you to identify the main keywords candidates search for and employers can then purposely place them on their websites to come up when you search for the keywords in Google. Other hieroglyphs that I have encountered related to analytics are CTR (click through rate), CPC (cost per click) and C/H (cost per hire).

B FOR BRANDING

HR is marketing. Just like companies market their products to appeal to consumers, companies market themselves to be considered an employer of choice (EOC). An employer brand is basically a company’s reputation and what candidates associate with a corporate name. Candidates commonly want to work for companies whose products and services they like and know of.

Blogging can be used as a tool of employer branding. Through storytelling candidates can get a better idea of what the company is all about and hear firsthand from people that already work there.

C FOR COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT

One of my tasks during my internship at Enterprise is to blog for the new social hub on the German website. As a social media community manager, my task is to find relevant content and put it in a format that is engaging and fun to read.

Social media has become so important and many new jobs are emerging because of this trend. There are many new career opportunities in this field. You should look into it if you love using Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify and Vine at work.

Corporate culture. People work with people and not organizations, so corporate culture is the most important thing within an organization. Some even say it’s a company’s DNA. One thing I love about Enterprise is how laid back everybody is. Upper management is very down to earth and approachable. To me those are the key qualities I look for in a leader. The company believes in employees being peers regardless of rank or time with the company. As an intern I have been treated as a regular team member. During my week at the German corporate office I even got a chance to have breakfast with the new VP of German Operations. We ran into each other at the breakfast buffet and he took some time to chat with me about Blind Applying.

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From Selling to Buying – My adventure continues in E-Commerce at Fashion ID

(by Gianna Misciosia)

So far I had the possibilities to take part in several big meetings where the designers present the upcoming collection to the buyers of both Fashion ID and Peek & Cloppenburg. I think it is super exciting to first of all have a look at the upcoming fashion trends and the designers’ fashion line. The discussions about the collection itself may be intense but also very interesting

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A few more details on my first Sharepoint application development project

(by Philipp Schodl)

“Sodala!” as we say in my home region when we finished something and are ready to start with a new task. As I’ve finished the first Sharepoint project last week, I’d like to provide you with a few more insights on the actual project. It’s already a little bit late, but I’m currently enjoying working on my next project, so it took me a bit longer to share my experiences with you.

This first Sharepoint project was kind of a training project for me to get used to the Sharepoint development environment but the cool thing about it is, that it was not only for training purposes. It is part of a bigger transition project and therefore it is actually now in use in a productive environment.

But let’s start from the beginning, why we had to redo this search tool. The search tool for specific certificates was already in place on the local intranet for a really long time and made use of several old fashioned methods and programming styles. As the local intranet is right now in a transition phase, it was the perfect moment to replace this outdated tool with an updated version.

So the first steps were to get all the necessary access rights to the development server and get familiar with the environment and its specific characteristics. The standard programming language we wanted to use was C#. As I was already used to the Visual Studio environment and VB.Net it was quite easy to get used to the programming language, as it’s quite similar except the syntax is a bit different.

After getting familiar with the existing code and the possibilities to improve the code and the functionality, I started working on it. As I haven’t developed anything on a Sharepoint server so far, the biggest challenge in this phase was to learn about the many methods on the Sharepoint server. There are always several equally good ways to come up with a solution to a specific problem and figuring out which method works well for which issue can be tricky. With a clear goal in mind and after a lot of troubleshooting with a tremendous amount of lessons learned, I finally managed to come up with the desired enhancements compared to the existing application.

The last phase in this project was the deployment phase. So this involved a code review and testing on the development server, as well as the deployment to the quality assurance server, testing again, documenting every step and every modification and getting all the necessary approvals for the implementation with the next change release to the production environment.

In the meanwhile also a fun event took place in our Fresenius headquarter in Lake Zurich, the Bean Bag Championship! Even though I’ve never played this game before we luckily made it to the second round but unfortunately we were defeated in this round without any chance :-( however it was definitely fun to play and I will introduce this game back home to my friends.

I know this was a text-heavy entry but I wanted to give you a little bit more insights in my actual work! But as one of the few well-known Austrians mentioned once in a while “I’ll be back!” soon with some more details about my exciting weekend activities!

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Career Meets Adventure

(by Isabel Hertl)

Isabel takes a break from her Assurance work at EY in Chile and explores South America! Career meets adventure on the mysterious volcano at Rapa Nui, the Easter Islands!

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Résumés and... Detroit!

Already 2/3 into her internship, Anna blogs about the difference between european and american CVs and résumés. Her career adventure takes her to Detroit where she discovers this myth-enshrouded motor city for the weekend!

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Berlin, Oxford & Co. - Some Insights From My "Berlin" Life

Hello, bonjour, Tach och! The past 2 weeks for Laura were full of traveling, enjoying good food & music. But have a look yourself!