Internship report by Jacqueline Dicke in 2010
I spent three months in Cologne shortly before finishing my degree in psychology in Frankfurt. Most students were in a hurry to finish school, but I wanted to see more before putting what I learned into practice.
After completing a six-month internship at the beginning of my main study period, this second internship was completely voluntary. I must say that it really paid off. I worked as an intern at kölner institut für managementberatung for three months between the two exam semesters after finishing my dissertation. I came across the advertisement for the internship at ki.m by accident. The focus of the institute (human resources management and organizational consulting) seemed to be a good fit for my concentration in educational psychology as well as industrial and organizational psychology. As I already knew that I wanted to work in HR after college, I was confident that I would get a lot of important practical experience at ki.m.
To me, the most exciting thing about ki.m was the wide range of different customers. I was able to gain insights into the personnel selection and development practices in a variety of industries – from insurance companies and banks to automotive corporations.
As an intern, I was fully integrated into the day-to-day business from the beginning, and was able to work independently on my own tasks. In addition to the conceptual and creative work involved in the job, I enjoyed traveling to assessment centers as an assistant the most. I was able to learn a great deal about the practical aspects of an AC while gaining insights into how this type of selection process is embedded into the overall staff development process within a company.
ki.m has a very pleasant working environment and a young, dynamic team of employees. The office concept is innovative, allowing you to work with different colleagues depending on the project. This gives you the opportunity to learn a lot from other people with different areas of concentration and academic backgrounds (sociology, business studies, psychology, business psychology).
The fact that I came to Cologne after finishing my degree in order to assist ki.m on a project full time just shows how much I liked my internship. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested.