Before the trip:

1.- During the selection process, try to demonstrate your willingness to join the project.

How? Being flexible with the internship options they could offer you. Please, keep in mind that sometimes your aspirations do not match with the company’s expectations. Language barriers, lack of competences, negative attitude during the interview etc.  could be a handicap for you when selecting the beneficiaries of the project. Please, draft a quality CV with your educational and professional achievements. An elaborated CV will be the basis to get a good internship offer.

2.- Language of destination. Communication is essential for any individual to perform any kind of job. Sometimes English language knowledge is not enough for some professions or just to perform specific activities.  For this reason, you should be aware of your professional field boundaries and think on this same profession performed by a foreigner in your own country. Should this person speak your language to do so? For that reason we should apply for professions in which we will be able to communicate either with staff and clients of the hosting company.

My advice: try to acquire, at least, basic knowledge of the target language, enough to survive and get valuable experience during your stay.

At the company:

3.- First day at the company. Please, keep the usual dress code for your professional field. For some professions you should ask your internship coordinator about any clothes requirements such as safety shoes, specific clothes etc. It is very important to get a good impression of your internship supervisor at the company. First of all, listen to this person and then formulate any questions you may need to ask.

 4.- Expectations. Sometimes the interns delude themselves with the job experience abroad.  High expectations in opposition to reality: a young intern, who lacks experience, language skills and educational process uncompleted, should be ready to perform basic tasks during the first weeks. Then, once the intern gets self-confidenceinto the new working context, his/her company supervisor could award him/her with more interesting tasks related to the professional profile. Sometimes, failure or success in an internship experience depend on personal attitude rather than on pre-acquired skills.

5.- Be always flexible and open minded during your stay abroad. You will enjoy a better experience if you keep with a positive attitude.

6.- Try to be empathic with the company staff as they should be with you. You must take into account that the staff needs to adapt to the new intern as well as you, the new intern, need to adapt to the new working environment.

7.- Reciprocity, in the sense of mutual exchange. This term is to be taken into account by both company and intern. They will spend valuable time during your professional training. As a payback, you will need to put in practice your recent acquired knowledge and maintain a hardworking attitude during the traineeship.

8.- Communication and personal relationships, are the basis to enjoy the traineeship stay. Be communicative and try to build suitable team-working relationships .

9.- New challenges. Be always prepared for new challenges no matter how impossible could seems at first view. This is real life and real companies need multitasking staff that are able to face difficulties by offering creative solutions.

10.-Try to enjoy both cultural and professional experience. Your stay abroad will enrich your professional skills but also it will contribute to your personal improvement.

Good luck and please, be free to ask any questions out of these mentioned above!