Tanja Schmitz has switched sides: in October, the student took part in a speed-dating event as a job applicant at Apollo Milchprodukte GmbH, a trading company based in Kleve. Six months later, she is now accompanying her managing director, Uwe Kockerbeck, to a speed-dating event on the Kamp-Lintfort campus in her role as a recruitment officer. “Since February 2015, I’ve been doing my work placement semester at Apollo in HR, specialising in occupational health management,” says the aspiring occupational and organisational psychologist. Now, when the buzzer sounds after ten minutes to signal the end of the interview, she remains seated whilst the students in front of her move on to the next one.
Tanja Schmitz, a student herself, is enthusiastic about the event format based on her own experience: “Thanks to the large number of companies where you can introduce yourself in person in a very short space of time, you receive direct, comparable feedback on yourself and on practical topics.”
With over 5,300 students, Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences has now become an important partner for companies in the Lower Rhine region when it comes to recruitment. To capitalise on this potential, the Friends’ Association and the university have developed the free speed-dating event. It enables employers to get to know their potential future skilled staff quickly and easily. Having switched sides, Tanja Schmitz is also able to assess the benefits for employers: “For Apollo, speed dating minimises the recruitment effort. During the three hours on the Kamp-Lintfort campus, we were able to meet several applicants for all the advertised roles, compare them directly and have many interesting conversations,” she says, summarising the successful afternoon for her current employer, the European market leader in the trade of liquid milk products for industrial processing.
The 15 participating companies brought with them numerous opportunities for students regarding work placements, practical semesters or final-year projects. Stefan Finke, Managing Director of the Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences Support Association, is convinced that the success story of Tanja Schmitz and Apollo is by no means an isolated case: “Speed-dating has now established itself as a format. Both sides – companies and students – rarely have the opportunity to get to know so many employers or applicants, respectively, in such a targeted way in the space of a single afternoon.”
That is why the university and the Friends’ Association are already planning the next event for October, this time on the Kleve campus. “Our aim is to encourage more companies to collaborate with the university so that they can identify talented students as future employees at an early stage,” says Stefan Finke, Managing Director of the Friends’ Association, explaining the purpose of speed dating, and he hopes for renewed support from the local business community.
