Weekly magazine VerkehrsRundschau, Kühne Logistics University, and recruiting specialists access invited recent university graduates and young specialists and managers to Hamburg on December 6 & 7, 2013 to learn more about trainee programs, career paths, and professional profiles in logistics and supply chain management.
Many renowned employers such as Edeka, Tchibo, Lufthansa Technik, Hermes, Still, and Anheuser Busch used the career event to conduct interviews with selected participants or scout talent for their companies during the event workshops. The one-and-a-half-day event was rounded off by exclusive tours of production and logistics facilities, and a cozy meet up on Friday evening.
The weather almost made it impossible to hold the event. At the time, storm front Xaver was blasting the North Sea back into the mouth of the Elbe River and the river basin around Hamburg. The water rose to 6.09 meters above sea level – and in Hamburg, that means, “batten down the hatches.”
Luckily, Xaver was old news by the second day and careers took over as the key theme. In addition to lectures, Saturday was full of pre-arranged interviews. At the career events companies can select their “favorite candidates” and invite them to a face-to-face interview.
An informative highlight of the event was the podium discussion. It featured a panel of top caliber logistics and supply chain experts, including Kai Könecke (Vice President Supply Chain DACH, Unilever), Frederik Zitz (Managing Partner, Hertzog & Partner), Stephan Borgmann (Head of Procurement Logistics and Purchasing Logistics Services, Edeka), Dirk Blesius (member of the Personnel Management Division, Kühne + Nagel), Dr. Kai Hoberg (Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management & Operations Management, Kühne Logistics University), and Alexander Ralfs (Head of SCM Retail, Tchibo). Andre Kranke, the acting editor-in-chief of “VerkehrsRundschau,” moderated the discussion.
In summary, we can say that both the company representatives and the participating students took advantage of the opportunity to become familiar with all of their counterparts’ strengths and weaknesses. At an event scheduled over two days, this is easier to do than at a classical career fair that is overrun with young professionals looking for work. Despite the business-oriented character of the event, the atmosphere in the KLU conference space was authentic, almost familiar. Both sides praised the successful mixture of professional and informal agenda points.
For the candidates, this was a perfect opportunity to become intimately familiar with six very different companies in their sector in the course of 36 hours. Before the event, many of them were unsure of the opportunities the participating companies could offer them and where they could find entry-level work with their qualifications in logistics. Afterwards, everything was clear. They met many contacts and found out about new career areas.
A complete success … despite Xaver!
Also read article: „Wege zum Chef-Logistiker“: VerkehrsRundschau 1/2 2014, Pages 22-23.
More information about Kai Hoberg.