Coburg
Students Take the Boss Chair at Brose
During the Easter break, four students from Coburg ‘s Alexandrinum, Albertinum, Casimirianum and Ernestinum high schools took the opportunity offered by the two-day “Students in the Boss’ Chair” educational project to get an impression of business operations at Brose from a manager’s perspective.
The youngsters did their short internship in the Seat Systems Business Division. After a welcome from Executive Vice-President Periklis Nassios and a brief presentation of the company, the students spent the first day finding out about the apprenticeship course, the different possible ways of starting a career with Brose and the requirement profile for applicants. After this, the young guests were given the chance to get an insight into actual work at Brose, viewing the
Seat Systems testing department and the business management side of the division. Their most exciting impressions came during their visit to the crash center in Grub am Forst.
On the second day, the four high school students met for a chat with Managing Director Stefan Krug. Then, after a tour of the factory, the youngsters practiced going through a job interview in the form of a role-play game. Members of the executive staff then showed them a number of management tools for customer projects, quality management and production planning.
“As in previous years, this short internship offers students a great opportunity to take home valuable tips on career planning, get insights into the day-to-day life of a business manager and to learn about the demands and duties facing employees in a modern corporate group,” says the head of Brose’s Apprentice Training Center, Michael Stammberger. At the same time, the students learned from the managers about the challenge and excitement of being a decision-maker and heading up a department.
Hendrik Brückner (18) now has a clearer idea about what opportunities will be open to him if he goes on to study Mechanical Engineering, as he hopes to do. “At first, I only thought about Development, but after these two days, when I learned about jobs in production planning and quality, I realized that the possibilities are much broader. Tabea Aschefeld (18) adds: “The insights we gained into real-life work were absolutely fascinating. I really liked Product Controlling and now I’m sure that when I finish school, I’m going to study business management. The students were impressed by the executive staff. “The bosses have a whole lot of responsibility. They have to think about so many things, it’s very challenging,” remarked Vanessa Wünsch (17) and Lena Brückner(17).
Brose also uses the opportunity that participating in the scheme offers to recruit new employees
from the region. The family-run business has been taking part in the scheme, which is held yearly on the initiative of the Rotary Club in collaboration with the Coburg Chamber of Trade and Industry and local businesses, since it started eleven years ago. The scheme is aimed at 12th-grade students, as well as students from the state technical high school. This year, some 30 students from the region took part.