2018
Update February
A report by Sabina Balmer.
Eight new B360 interns in Switzerland
On February 3, a new group of eight B360 interns arrived at Zurich Airport, and each was cordially welcomed by his or her host family. Full of expectations and with some apprehensions, they started their internships on February 5. The company mentors and their teams play a very important role for the interns in our partner companies. They guide and support the young people with patience and commitment during the three months.
Four mentors on their experience
We interviewed four mentors with previous experience in coaching B360 interns. We wanted to know what the specific challenges and highlights were in their work relationship with the young students from Southern Africa. We were also interested to know what they thought was required to make the three-month internship a win-win experience.
Here you can read the questions and respective answers given by the four mentors:
“As we like to say at Julius Baer Academy: “Learning begins with you, continues in a learning community and succeeds as a learning organization”. So I would advise the students to remain curious and to continue learning in order to be successful in their future life in business.”
“My personal advice which I would like to give to the student for his/her future life in business is to take every opportunity to gain knowledge in various fields and maintaining good relationships with colleagues. Being resilient, flexible and honest are also important characteristics, which are needed to be successful in today’s business world.”
“Yes, it is a lot of extra work, but also an enrichment for the whole team including myself. To see our daily work from a different angle helps in setting the right priorities. In our daily exchanges we can learn a lot from one another in many different ways.”
“The biggest hurdle is often that they are not used to asking questions. And that can be a burden on the teams, because the learning process is slowed down if the open questions are not put forward. Therefore, it is always our first task to motivate the students to ask about everything...”
