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Study – ready – stay! Gaining International Graduates as Specialists

Lesedauer: min

Arbeitsagentur Aachen, RWTH Aachen, and the Aachen City Region started new initiatives on July 9, 2012, to secure technical specialists: competition under the banner of globalization, technological change, and demographic development also lead to enormous challenges in the Aachen region in attracting qualified professionals. Bottlenecks already exist in some career fields, such as the IT field and engineerings in metal and electrical fields.

At the same, about 5,500 international students are studying at RWTH Aachen. Students from China (900) are the group represented the most, along with Turkey (500), and India (356). The international students study above all in the engineering sciences and computer science - exactly those fields, in which the named bottlenecks are becoming ever more noticeable now.

Given the high need for specialists in these fields, it is necessary to obtain the high potential of students as specialists for the reason more than before.

study – ready – stay! This motto shapes the work of this initiative: the goal of the collaborative partners is to keep graduates in the region, to present them with work opportunities, and to provide them with help. Two thirds of the students not from EU countries would like to work for a while in their host country after graduating.  This is where the work starts: the potential of international specialists should be committed to the region through work offers. It is obvious: graduates and companies can only gain from this!

The Agentur für Arbeit Aachen, RWTH Aachen with the Career Center and the International Office, the Aachen City Region with the Foreigners' Office, and the Regionalagentur der AGIT are now starting with a new format with the goal of committing highly qualified graduates to the region.

On July 9, 2012, the first kick-off event for international students took place in the Super C: possibilities and opportunities for remaining here for professional purposes presented and the prerequisites were explained, which must be taken into consideration when looking for initial employment. Topic focal points included the state of the job market and the related perspectives, strategies for searching for a job, and residency questions.

Companies from the region introduced examples of their job openings, and former international students depicted how the start to their careers went. This information was supplemented for the 84 registered graduates through a further integration coaching service conducted by experts from the Arbeitsagentur.

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