Smartly designed internet portals advertise in a target group oriented way

The demand for young specialist staff is great – and companies have good jobs to offer. But how can both parties find each other? In a similar way to dating agencies: websites which are tailored to the needs of their target group act as successful contact markets.

The name "PFIFF" – smart in English - says it all. Interns in the regional government authority came up with it when they were thinking about an online portal four years ago with the aim of attracting interested specialist staff. "Particularly those who have to travel a long way to go to work but would like to work in near where they live. And specialist staff who want to remain in or return to Saxony-Anhalt after training“, says Kerstin Mogdans.

In 2008, the "Portal für interessierte und flexible Fachkräfte" (portal for interested and specialist staff) was launched  – www.pfiff-sachsen-anhalt.de. From the outset, Kerstin Mogdans from Bildungswerk der Wirtschaft Sachsen-Anhalt e.V. has been the head of the project that is supported by the state and the EU. She coordinates, makes contacts and creates the preconditions that can link the state government, companies, regional and superregional labour market representatives, projects and initiatives and above all, of course, specialist staff.

"PFIFF-Saxony-Anhalt – the portal for specialist staff" is first and foremost a pilot, says the project manager and that professional opportunities and career opportunities are shown here, as well as possibilities for combining working job and family.

60% of job seekers who visit the database have a skilled worker qualification, 40% are academics. "Both the job seekers and the searching companies come from all sectors“, says Kerstin Mogdans. Companies can add their jobs to the portal free of charge and can also search for suitable applicant profiles themselves.

However, let us also not forget the "human" pilots behind the portal. The regional advisors in Altmark, Dessau, Halle, Magdeburg and in Harz enjoy offering a helping hand – to both the specialist staff and companies. Furthermore, there is also a free hotline available from Monday to Friday 8am-8pm: 0800 66 300 66.

"THE NEXT GENERATION MARKET Saxony-Anhalt" – reads the bold writing on the website which Sibylle Bürger loads. She is quite rightly able to refer to the job portal for students and graduates from Saxony-Anhalt as her "child“.
Sibylle Bürger was right there from the start when the Career Center at the Magdeburg-Stendal University was brought to life as a direct partner for graduates and commercial enterprises. The demand for employment agencies was great from both parties. The trained constructional engineer soon felt the need to direct the mass of information in a targeted way in the right channels. Her idea was to create a job portal to which both students and companies have access. Within a year, she had developed www.nachwuchsmarkt.de. The site went online in 2007. Students and graduates of all seven universities in Saxony-Anhalt visit this portal practically every day to browse at its listings. The job database contains not only offers for permanent positions, but also offers of internships, side jobs or topics which are allocated by companies for semester or final assignments.

For various reasons, sometimes you just do not have the time to browse the job portal every day, says Sibylle Bürger. However, the Head of the Career Center can offer some words of comfort to all users who have registered as job seekers: "If a matching job offer appears, it will be automatically sent to the user's e-mail address.“

Small family business to worldwide active companies use "THE NEXT GENERATION MARKET Saxony-Anhalt" and set their profiles here. Anyone who needs help in the process is offered support. "Regional partners are active behind the portal and provide help in an advisory capacity. You just need to pick up the telephone“, says Sibylle Bürger and that these contact opportunities from person to person are also happily used by companies as a way of meeting people.

ITmitte is a successful portal designed by companies in the IT sector. Dr. Jörg Klukas was the head of human resources at T-Systems Multimedia Solutions in Dresden for seven years. He was able to hire 100 young specialist members of staff each year – and had to turn down around 1,000 young people due to the very high number of applicants. Certainly including good to very good specialist staff, agreed Klukas and partners from six other companies in the IT sector. They each analysed the applicants which were turned down – and still found 10% of these recommendable. 100 x 6: a far from insignificant number of well trained specialist staff who will probably move after their rejected application. "But these people are evidently needed in Central Germany“, says Jörg Klukas.

What the six IT companies founded for Saxony in 2009 was already expanded to Central Germany a year later: www.ITmitte.de is an internet platform via which IT jobs, positions and internships are offered to specialist and management staff in the states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. In the meantime, around 60 IT and software organisations make up the ITmitte.de community. Its members have agreed to five criteria for a "recommendation code". Whoever receives the code and specifies the code in their online application can reapply at any time to other community partners as a recommended candidate and shall receive qualified feedback within seven days. "This turns a rejection into a recommendation and means that good applicants get a second chance“, says Jörg Klukas. In 2010/11, the community promised 600 recommendations. In total, 1,800 young specialist staff from the IT sector have been found.

You can find a good overview of the job databases at the websites JobRobot or Deutschen Bildungsservers.

Other links (Job sites):
  • The online job database for every German city www.meinestadt.de, a joint project between the Federal Employment Agency and the internet company "Allesklar.com", offers a town-based job searching facility via the internet for the first time in Germany. The local job databases are updated on a daily basis and are arranged according to field of work. 
  • The job seeker portal "JOBIMPUULS", which was developed after the investment decision of the BMW Group at the initiative of the city of Leipzig addresses the requirement for staff by future investors or companies which have already settled in the region surrounding Leipzig and offers job seekers a platform for their job search.
  • Employees who are specifically interested in working at the BMW factory in Leipzig can use the online application available from www.bmw-werk-leipzig.de.
  • Zellstoff Stendal GmbH commissioned a production plant in 2004 to manufacture kraft pulp at the site of Arneburg, district of Stendal. A total of 580 employees are employed here. Further information is available from www.zellstoff-stendal.de.
  • A job database especially for IT jobs is available at www.it-treff.de.
  • Students can find the latest jobs at Jobbörse Magdeburg.
  • The project "Knowledge Transfer Association - Students in regional Companies" wants to help students and companies in Saxony-Anhalt in developing cooperative relationships. Company internships, master, final assignment, doctorate projects, side jobs and entry positions for students at universities in the state are shared at www.koop-dgb.uni-halle.de.
  • Job offers in European countries can be found at the European Employment Services website EURES and Europa-Job-Centers Magdeburg. The European service of the Federal Employment Agency Mobil in Europa is new.


Text/Photo: Kathrain Graubaum