With an aperitif of welcome as the starting signal on the hotel roof terrace, with a sensational view of the harbour, participants and organisers found it easy to get together and get into the right mood for the next day.
Friday began with an opening speech from Mike Dawson (Deutscher Fachverlag GmbH), an experienced journalist who chaired the framework programme and led the Career Days.
The company representatives then spoke about their company and what they could offer the students. This stimulated interest in trainee programmes, trainee posts, dissertations and direct entries. Valora was efficiently represented by Kerstin Hirczy, Head of Corporate Training and Dirk Otto, Managing Director Category Management Valora Retail.

After the lunch break, previously chosen case studies were studied in small groups. Assisted by the relevant companies, the students worked into the early evening on the case studies for presentation on Saturday. Towards evening, the pressure clearly grew to   finish everything off perfectly which then eased off with a Tapas rally through Palma. This was organised as a challenge for one or other small group, including a small amount of straying, lack of knowledge of Spanish and street plans which weren’t that easy to read. A successful evening, learning about culture and Palma old town with all its places of interest allowed and even contributed to the networking.

The students then enthusiastically presented their solutions to the case studies on Saturday. They developed marketing and expansion concepts, which brought them considerably closer to "trade”. Innovative, self-assured and with detailed research, the results are quite suitable for use in the daily routine at work. The "traders” were quite taken with the proposed solutions as well as the professionalism of the presentations. "There were some new ideas which we could certainly take on board after a little work”, enthused Dirk Otto.

At this point, thanks to the coordinators at St.Gallen university for this event which gave the young talent and the companies an ideal platform for proactive networking.

As for Valora, several good contacts were made at the recruiting event with students who now or in a year’s time at the latest, will decide once and for all whether to apply to us for a job.

• Press release (pdf, 260.97 KB)