Results from the Roundtable in Germany

In the course of the Roundtable in Germany, the experts had a fruitful discussion on the needs of the internet industry regarding the offer and demand in terms of training and education. In the following, the most important views and results will be presented.

SMEs: Companies criticise that there are no adequate candidates for vacancies. One example was mentioned when a company was looking for a Web Designer for a long period of time without being successful. It was acknowledged that we have to distinguish between “normal” employees who do everyday business and “genius” people who are expected to bring in extraordinary competencies.Local SMEs recruit staff from the local job market. They do not feel that there is a need for international recruitment. SMEs additionally wish to have applicants/employees with more assertiveness and criticise the rigid structure of the educational system in Germany.

Secondary Schools: The major problem is that pupils do not exactly know, which job to choose and how to get there. They rather have inconcrete wishes such as: “I´d like to do something with IT later on.” What they lack is a clear idea of which jobs exist, which tasks the jobs comprise, and which requirements they have to fulfil to take over such a job. The representative of a local secondary school therefore uttered the wish to enhance the cooperation with local SMEs in order to offer the pupils the chance to directly get to know interesting job profiles and to interact with apprentices at their age. Furthermore, the representative admitted that he lacks the know how to offer the pupils an adequate advice.

Vocational Schools: Vocational Schools feel that their work is adequate to prepare the pupils/apprentices for the work life. They agree that the technical skills seem to be fulfilled, but do not feel that it is their task to create curiosity, develop soft skills, etc. They admit that those characteristics are important, but rather expect the secondary schools to take over those tasks. However, they apply teamwork tasks at school as they are well aware of the needs in terms of project management. They also criticise the rigid structure of the educational system in Germany.

Institute for Economic Promotion, Essen: The institute confirms the SME´s view in regard to missing qualified workers. The representative feels that most companies recruit rather locally. Only the big players extend their angle onto the international job market. However, those companies are not the target group of PIN.