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IPO - Practice and Research

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First company day with the Max-Plank-Gymnasium

Company day for pupils of the Max-Planck-Gymnasium

Company day police — Pupils at the police station on company day

Following on from the successful "Company Day" model in Speyer, the event has now been extended to Ludwigshafen in the 2023/24 winter semester.

Under the scientific and practical direction of IPO course director Prof. Dr. Claudia Kohl (Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society) and careers and study orientation coordinator Michael Möbius (Max Planck Gymnasium Ludwigshafen), 80 upper school pupils and 32 HR management students spent an exciting and instructive day at various companies in Ludwigshafen on 16 November 2023, where they practised conducting job interviews.

Max-Planck-Gymnasium company day

Claudia Kohl and Michael Möbius would like to thank all the groups involved for their great commitment and look forward to organizing the next Company Day in Ludwigshafen in November 2024.

Operation day, 17.05.2023 at Friedrich-Magnus-Schwerd-Gymnasium, Speyer

Field report 1 Speyer operating day on May 17, 2023

Welcome by the President of the HWG Prof. Dr. Gunther Piller

On this year's Company Day, students from the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences were given the opportunity to practice job interviews together with students from the Friedrich-Magnus-Schwert-Gymnasium Speyer.

Together with the companies assigned to us, all those involved gained insights into new, exciting occupational fields.

After a round of introductions by the participants, the human resources representative of the company assigned to us gave a presentation on the training and dual study options offered by the company. After a breakfast break, we then moved on to the individual job interviews. Here it came to interviews in occupational groups as for example the training as: r educator: in, Physiotherapeut: in or also Pfleger: in. The special thing about these interviews was that we were introduced to the company and its wide range of professions, as well as how to deal professionally with potential applicants.

After the interviews, the students exchanged their impressions in a feedback session: positive feedback through and through! This, of course, delighted all parties.

Learnings that came out of the company day include:
-   Communicating with applicants: inside
-   Formulating questions and answers during an interview
-   How do I give feedback that helps the: n applicant: in but does not criticize?
-   What should I pay attention to in my body language? (Eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, etc.)
-   How can I alleviate nervousness?
-   How should I ask questions so that I have an interview time of at least 20 minutes?

Areas for improvement in our opinion are:
More teachers or farm supervisors because not everyone was able to get feedback due to time constraints.

Our impressions were always positive! The operations day gives us as IPO students the first real opportunity to practically apply our learned knowledge. The exercise was definitely enriching and we recommend it to all HWG-LU students as well as to the students: inside the high school.

Field report 2 Speyer operating day on 17.05.2023

Students HWG Operation Day — Students of the HWG at the company day Speyer

Last week we participated in the company day of the Friedrich-Magnus-Schwerd Gymnasium in Speyer. We were given the opportunity to practice job interviews with the students. Beforehand, we got in touch with the human resources staff of the company we were assigned to in order to discuss the organizational conditions and the procedure of the job interviews. We were provided with the students' applications beforehand - here we were able to get a brief impression. However, the application documents were weaker than expected, which is why we were all the more pleased when the students' interviews went better than the first impression had led us to expect. Thanks to the open-minded nature of the students, the interviews also ran smoothly throughout - which made us very happy in our role as recruiters, so we were able to conduct the interviews in a targeted manner.

At the end of the day, we left Speyer with a good feeling, as the students gave very positive feedback on the event and we also had the feeling that we had really helped them with our tips. We students were able to come to the realization that although application documents form the first impression, a personal interview can be much more valuable. The feedback from the company's HR staff was consistently positive, both to the students and to us. We would highly recommend this experience to any IPO student at HWG, as practical experience not only looks good on one's resume, but really provides confidence for future interviews.

Model project university-school-business

In the recent past, there have been increasing calls for greater openness and creativity in university teaching and in students' learning processes. The call for more exchange and networking between students and pupils on the one hand and company representatives on the other has become louder.

It was precisely at this interface that the 33 students of the "International Personnel Management and Organization" (IPO) course of study joined forces with the students of the Friedrich-Magnus-Schwerd Gymnasium at the Company Day in Speyer. Numerous companies from Speyer participated in the event. For example, the Deutsche Rentenversicherung, the Diakonissen Klinikum Speyer, Lidl, PFW Aerospace GmbH, the Police RLP, SH Computersysteme GmbH, the Sparkasse Vorderpfalz, the Municipality of Speyer, TE Connectivity and the Volksbank Kur- und Rheinpfalz.

The project was accompanied by Prof. Dr. Claudia Kohl and LB Michael Hartmann from the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences and by Mrs. Kothe, Director of Studies, from the Friedrich-Magnus-Schwerd Gymnasium.

After two years of standstill due to the Corona pandemic, this year again in presence, the twelfth grade students of the Gymnasium were prepared by IPO students for their way after the Abitur. Together with the students, the students were able to practice the application process (based on the previously submitted digital application documents) by simulating job interviews with the participating companies in Speyer. The students took on the role of the recruiter. Exemplary for many IPO students, Afia Pinamang and Patrizia Walter reported on their experiences: "We received honest and also helpful feedback from the company side. And what made us particularly happy was the statement from the HR people that you can see us both in the profession and we will make our way. What also pleased and positively surprised us was how different the respective applicants are in real life and how seriously they took the interview and gave each other and us qualitative feedback. The company day will definitely remain a positive memory for us and we are very grateful for all that we were able to learn and experience on that day."

For our students at Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences, the offer represents an extraordinary opportunity to try out their skills and qualities as "human resources representatives" in a company on their own responsibility, to demonstrate their skills and qualities under largely real conditions, and at the same time to advertise our university. The consistently positive feedback from the company representatives and the teachers on the quality of the participants' performance confirmed this in an impressive way. Human Resources Management student Sven Holzmayr from the "Municipality" group was delighted with the highly motivated students and summed up the company day as "a wonderful experience".

Excursion to the labor court

On 20.12.2022, five IPO students had the opportunity to experience at first hand the role they might play as future HR managers at the Mannheim Labor Court. At various conciliation hearings of the 8th Chamber of the Labor Court, they were able to experience the variety of labor law conflicts with which the personnel management of various employers is confronted. A conciliation hearing is the first hearing in the first-instance proceedings at the labor court. The aim is to reach an amicable settlement between the plaintiff and the defendant as quickly as possible by discussing the nature of the dispute, which then brings the legal dispute to an end. The excursion was part of the 4th semester of the International Personnel Management (IPO) course in the module "Advanced Legal Fundamentals of Human Resources" and was initiated and organized by Prof. Dr. Ludwig Koch.

The complaints heard included, in particular, the settlement of salary discrepancies following a dismissal and the demand for a severance payment, as there were discrepancies on the part of the employees and the dismissal was perceived as "illegal". After the individual conciliation hearings, the presiding judge took a lot of time for the students and answered their questions about the nature of conciliation hearings and the role of personnel officers at the labor court. Likewise, he explained the possibility of being a volunteer judge as a future employee in the human resource management field, which was met with great interest among the students.

IPO student Hannah Endl considered the day at the labor court to be a complete success: "The excursion was particularly exciting for us students, as it enabled us to put into practice the theory we had already learned in the subject of labor law and thus establish a direct link. Especially topics such as severance pay and protection against dismissal are currently the focus of our lectures and were therefore able to strengthen our understanding of these areas. In addition, it was very helpful that the judge in charge communicated and discussed with us after each hearing. In this way, we were also able to better understand his point of view and learn more about it. In the future, we would like to attend conciliation hearings of the labor court more often, as you are also allowed to sit in the courtroom as a private person and gain insights."

(Manju Ludwig and Hannah Endl)

Expansion of cooperation between university, school and industry

Human Resources Management students coach students at TE Connectivity company

After the great success of the company day in Speyer in the summer of 2022, students of the study program "International Personnel Management and Organization" (IPO) of the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences once again committed themselves to the networking between university, school and business and coached high school students of the Edith-Stein-Gymnasium in the company TE Connectivity Germany in Speyer on December 8, 2022 in the application training "Professional Conducting of Applicant Interviews".

The participating students were able to prepare themselves for the time after the Abitur on the basis of specially created digital application folders for an apprenticeship in an interview and were supported by the IPO students through the assessment of the application folders, the implementation of a simulated interview with the participating company and subsequent feedback.

This gave the participating students the opportunity to slip into the role of the company's personnel manager on their own responsibility and to apply the contents of their studies in a practical way. The application training was a very successful experience for students, students and companies. The students summed up the day as follows: "By taking part in the company day, we were given the opportunity to apply the knowledge we had learned in our studies directly in practice. Through professional feedback from TE Connectivity employees, we received many important impulses and were able to learn new things."