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As an FS student soon finishing my Frankfurt MBA, I am planning to stay in Germany for some more international work experience. Looking for a job is different here from many other countries. Let me tell you about my experiences in Europe:
My MBA will be finished in December and I am currently a working student at Deutsche Börse Group (DBG) in Compliance. My responsibilities revolve around ensuring compliance of the whole group with BDSG (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz) i.e. Federal Data Protection Act in Germany. Having a previous job experience, I believe my responsibilities are far more than a typical working student and thus I am having a great time being able to make impactful decisions in the Group Data Protection and working with diverse teams.
I believe the recruiting process is quite fair and competitive in Germany. I had a lot of opportunities to interact with different employers through a number of career fairs, recruitment drives, workshops and executive talks. Also, it’s quite interesting that you often find personal contact information of the relevant person on the job advertisement which makes it easier to inquire how you may be the right fit for the position or any other information you require. Having said that I believe, you can go a long way with a solid network anywhere be it Germany or Pakistan. Hence, it is vital to continuously build the right network which may help you climb up the career ladder.
Speaking from my experience at Deutsche Börse, everyone here likes to empower you with decision making and doesn’t micromanage. One has a lot of opportunities to access higher-ups and can take several initiatives in order to meet his/her or team’s KPIs more expediently. The workplace environment is quite international; one can easily get by with English. Moreover, the individuals I am working with are highly diverse in terms of their academic and professional background and we go to great lengths to help each other.
I cannot pinpoint any specific course or topic that helped me secure the job or that I apply to my job; however, it’s a mixture of the things we learn in the classroom and beyond the classroom which allow me to contribute to my current workplace. For instance, in one of my classes we learnt how important it is to be prepared for unconventional questions which may occur during the interview and this indeed prepared me to answer “Tell us something that is not on your CV”, which came during one of my interviews. Hence, one should take the whole MBA experience as learning in order to make the most out of it.
I am quite happy with my decision of choosing a group consulting project with Zalando. I had already done a thesis during my bachelor’s studies; hence, I was looking for something that is far more exciting, applied and interactive. Having been able to do a project with one of the most growing companies in Germany is a great opportunity. The project title is “Net-Promoter-Score as a measure of Zalando customer satisfaction and its impact on financial performance” and for which we plan to frequently visit Zalando HQ at Berlin to interact with their teams and understand and deliver the project outcome. Additionally, I am working with such a talented and diverse team coming from China and Russia; every meeting we have is full of interesting ideas and discussions along with a continuous learning experience.
My final thoughts are that the MBA experience is an intense roller coaster ride. Learning German, doing a job and performing in class will require a lot of patience, hard-work and sleepless nights. But the good side is you learn a great deal, experience a lot new things and meet great new people along the way. One has to be mentally prepared for this thriving experience and sincerely commit to it. Lastly, one skill that I worked on and which came very handy during the MBA is time management. During the intense weeks, I had my whole months planned with what I had to do each day; I think this skill will also be very fruitful in the future.
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