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THE CEMS INTERNATIONAL INTERNSHIP

Internships provide students with the real-life professional learning experience. The CEMS internship must therefore be at the level of a graduate recruit to provide valuable business experience. Internships can take place at a CEMS Corporate Partner, although not compulsory. They can also take place at CEMS Social Partners or other non-profit organisation such as in a humanitarian mission, provided responsibility levels correspond.

Students are responsible for finding their own internship and for all official documents required for the employment. If students wish to receive internship and job offers by e-mail, they can use the JobMarket service here. There have been further developments made on the JobMarket tool to allow CEMS students to get access to career opportunities. When on the website, you can find all jobs posted on JobTeaser by clicking on Job Offers. By clicking on CEMS Partners, you can see jobs posted by CEMS Corporate Partners.

However, before applying for your dream Internship it is important to create a great CV. The CEMS website provides you with some tips and tricks here

Official Requirements for the CEMS Internship

Internships must cover a period of at least 8 consecutive weeks full-time in the same company (the first 8 weeks of a full-time employment position are also accepted), a longer period of internship is subject to local decision based on home degree requirements. Students either spend the internship abroad, or, when spending both academic terms abroad, they may pursue the internship at home, but within a company operating in an international environment.

For the purposes of the CEMS MIM Graduation requirements, "abroad" is defined as outside the country of the home school. Students may apply to their Academic Director to be allowed to do their internship in the home school country when their personal background justifies this interpretation. This request may be considered if the student originates from another country or has acquired secondary education or a bachelor’s degree in different countries

Students who are more oriented towards work in the entrepreneurial sector may fulfil the internship requirements through work with their own start-up if all conditions of “regular internships” are met and it is approved by the home CEMS home school Academic Director. Supervision is provided by the home school.

Internships can take place at any time (also prior to CEMS selection), except parallel to the two academic CEMS MIM terms.

Internships must be during the graduate level of studies, starting with the date when the student fulfilled all official bachelor’s degree study requirements.

The internship can overlap with the Block Seminar only when a contractually agreed vacation is declared. The student is responsible for providing official documentation to the home Programme Manager.

Internships must be a full-time activity at a professional level (first job level, although salaries may not be commensurate) where the student is given one or more challenging projects with a certain degree of autonomy.

The student's work must be supervised within the company.

Students may work in different departments but must work on a given project. Note that internships at start-ups, CEMS Social Partners, and other NGOs are also recognized as a CEMS Internship (provided that it respects other principles).

The company supervisor has to complete an evaluation form at the end of the internship or at the end of the CEMS mandated minimum 8-week period.

Internships must be approved by the home institution before the start (see below).

Final dates to start & end the internship for those students who begin the internship in the year of the expected graduation year:

Latest Starting Date: 2nd Monday of September *September 12th, 2022

Latest Ending Date: 1st Sunday of November *November 7th, 2022

Registration and Validation

• Students must register their internship before its start in their private zone on cems.org for validation, providing the necessary information. This information will be shared with managers and supervisors. Make sure that you enter correct information.

• Managers will verify the registered information. Once it is approved, students can start the internship.

• The online evaluation form will be automatically sent to the supervisor (see below for the mailing rules).

• The submission of the evaluation form is essential for the graduation. Therefore, students are expected to ensure that company supervisors fill it in.

[Automatic Mailing Rules]

- If the internship is less than 12 weeks: 1 week before the end of the internship

- If the internship is more than 12 weeks: 1 month before the end of the internship

- Last reminder to fill the evaluation form will be send at the end of the internship

• When the supervisor submits the evaluation form, the internship will be validated. The evaluation result is accessible for managers and students via the student private zone.

Refer to Steps to Register Internship Information to the CEMS Database (For Students) for more details.

Please note that many countries can only offer internships to individuals having a student status at a university. CEMS as an organisation cannot legally offer student status.

COVID-19 Measures

The CEMS Graduation Committee has put in place exceptional measures regarding the internship requirements for CEMS classes 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/2023. The conditions stated below are valid until the Graduation Committee recalls them and are strictly subject to a case by case evaluation and the decision of the home school academic director.

Students may be exempted from having to carry out an internship abroad when there is justified evidence that traveling, hiring, VISA and other restrictions imposed by countries or companiesparticularly outside Europe - prevent students from securing an internship that meets the CEMS Graduation requirements.

Students may be exempted from having to carry out an internship physically present at a company when there is justified evidence as mentioned above. However, it is important to mention that recently several false/fraudulent online work opportunities have emerged – students are requested to carefully assess any online work offers.

Students will be asked to provide evidence of challenges to meet the international internship. Students are encouraged to contact their home academic directors and managers to assess their situations.

To graduate in 2022, internships must start at the latest on 12 September and finalize it by 7 November at the latest.

Students are encouraged to contact their home academic directors and managers to discuss their individual situations.

Recommendations By The Cems Student Board

Summary

1. Start early, send many, many, many applications.

2. CPs are great. Corporates are great. But they’re not the only internships out there look for opportunities at Social Partners, start-ups, NGOs, and smaller organizations.

3. Be creative in your visa search. Some countries are much more difficult to get work visas in. Look into working vacation schemes, options for visas at your exchange school, remote internship opportunities or work in your home school country, if allowed.

4. If you miss the summer, don’t sweat it. You can do your internship before or after your CEMS terms. Just be sure you start work by the first Monday of September of the year you graduate and that any previous work you want to count as your internship was done after you received your bachelors.

5. If you decide to apply for a remote internship opportunity, make sure to check the legibility of the internship: check the contract, company identity and employee reviews.

6. Use the CEMS network! We have thousands and thousands of brilliant and successful students and alumni.

Recommendations

Visas

Visa and work permit requirements present an issue to many students. This problem varies greatly from country to country, which makes it difficult to give specific recommendations. Obtaining a visa for an 8-week internship is very hard. Therefore, students often accept longer internships or search for direct entry positions. We recommend making sure that all students that need a visa for an internship in a specific country gather all the necessary information on visa and work permit requirements of the country of interest well in advance. Please bear in mind that most companies do not provide assistance in obtaining a visa/work permit, especially for internships. Be creative about where you work as well. Some countries may have working holiday schemes or special exceptions for work visas. Be open-minded about where you complete your internship.

Timeline

Apply as early as you can. Just got into CEMS? Apply. Haven’t started your next semester? Apply. There’s no such thing as starting too early, and most big companies fill slots many months before start dates. Starting earlier can also give you a much better chance of getting a visa, since many companies are limited in how many work visas they can sponsor in most countries.

The Hunt

Be more creative than just looking through job boards or LinkedIn ads. Public job platforms often get thousands of applications per position. As amazing as the CEMS degree is, thousands is still hard to compete with! First, leverage your network. As a CEMSie, you have a plethora of resources to use to do so.:

- CEMS Job Market – The online market (which can be accessed through your CEMS.org account) has info on all the Corporate Partners and exclusive job listings for CEMSies.

- GAMP – Global Advisory & Mentoring Platform is a resource from the CEMS Alumni Association, which connects students and alumni in interested fields. Create an account to see if alumni in your area are working in fields that interest you and see if they’d be free to grab a coffee! You can use this tool for career advice, CV help, and interview practice. There are over 900+ alumni waiting for you!

- CEMS Career Forum – The Career Forum is the highlight recruitment event of the CEMS year and for many of our Corporate Partners, who attend to get in contact with CEMSies. They offer first stage job interviews, skill seminars, career information and CV screening. On average, over 40 CPs attend conducting +25 skill seminars and +650 interviews.

- LinkedIn: Although LinkedIn can help you drastically to find a job through its job search tool, there are also several CEMS LinkedIn groups that may provide opportunities. Specifically, the main group “CEMS - The Global Alliance in Management Education” can help you with job offers, recruitment tips, answering queries and much more.

- Facebook: A must for everyone who is looking for a job are the Facebook groups called “CEMS Worldwide” and “CEMS Job Offers”. The former attempts to make every CEMSie join to gather the whole CEMS community together, while the latter is more specifically dedicated to interesting job opportunities for CEMSies. On a daily basis these groups share job offers, contacts & information, recruitment tips and tricks. You may also try some of the many other CEMS-affiliated groups based on career sectors and preferences, such as: a. CEMS Entrepreneurs b. CEMS International Development Group

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