Name: Cathy Jiang

                              University: Shanghai Jiao Tong

                              Internship at Continental in: USA

                        "Youngsters are the future of the world”

Please describe your experience during the internship at Continental?

It was fabulous and will never be erased from my memories. In the first months, the hands-on training and the rotation in different departments provide me a clear picture of the organization as well as of their daily operations. Nice colleagues and a friendly working environment guaranteed a highly quality internship.

During my 11 month internship, I had the opportunity to gain my professional knowledge, to enhance my communication and interpersonal skills as well as to build a network to support my further career. Besides gaining working experience, the internship gave me an opportunity to experience the culture diversity inside Conti and offered me to work in a multicultural team. This is the Cont-Spirit!

Above all, thanks to GEIP, now I have a better global understanding to a lot of things and I’m one step closer to be a Global Excellence Engineer.

Why was your internship important for your further professional development? How does it help you to be successful in a global working environment?

This project-oriented internship helped me to build many professional skills and core competencies, which you never can obtain from the theoretical input of a university.

For graduates it is very important to gain international work experience, to learn how to adapt to a team as well as an effective communication with internal and external stakeholders. That’s exactly what GEIP gave me!

My team consisted of many different people from the US, Mexico, Germany, Poland and China. Due to the different cultures we had some negotiations at the beginning. I learnt to adjust to the melting pot and to appreciate different cultures. At the end it was a great experience for me to work in a global company.

How do you see Continental as an employer? What is the Employer Brand Image of Continental that you have in mind?

Continental is a very promising company which can be characterized with long term strategies, the willingness to develop talents at an early stage of their career and transfer know-how and best practices to everyone.

From my point of view, the company plays and will play a big role in the fast growing world, due to their strategy to attract, recruit and bind graduates with programs like GEIP and Explore, etc.

Youngsters are the future of the world. With this idea in mind, Continental will always be successful and fast growing. Now I am working as an intern for Continental in Shanghai again and will continue my career path with the company. Last but not least, thank you to Continental!