Mentoring at Drees & Sommer

The internship generation? Not in our company! At Drees & Sommer, interns and student employees are supported from the outset – and integrated into the company at an early stage.

I belong to the internship generation: My curriculum vitae is full of countless internships. I had paid and unpaid internships, great ones and pointless ones. Some lasting six weeks, some six months. Some with lots of responsibility – and some with none at all. Nevertheless, I learned a lot – and later joined one of the companies as a permanent employee following my internship with them. So for me, it paid off.

At Drees & Sommer, interns are fully involved right from the start. And I don't mean making coffee or standing at the copier, but participating directly in projects. To make sure they get off to a good start, interns join the student mentoring program.

Of course, we have always supported students, but since 2008, this has been done as part of an official student mentoring program comprising two components: Firstly, it imparts knowledge about industries, initiatives, services and tools through a series of presentations. And then it provides actual mentoring. At each site, there are mentors responsible for the students. They support them and are there to provide advice – from the day they start at Drees & Sommer until their possible recruitment as company employees.

“The mentoring program reflects many great aspects of Drees & Sommer,” says project manager David Kuhn, who as a mentor, shares responsibility for the program with Lorena Lüdorf. “I have seen for myself how the presentations – which cover a broad range of topics – give students a great insight into the different areas here at Drees & Sommer,” says Lorena Lüdorf. Having taken part in the mentoring program as an intern herself, the project manager now acts as a mentor, helping train her young colleagues. “David and I do our mentoring on top of our normal project work – and fortunately, because so many colleagues from different areas support us, the organizational effort is not excessive. And the contact with the students is fun,” she says.

Good Ideas, No Limits

The student mentoring program has a Welcome Day, regular presentations on disciplines such as facility management or energy design, and is rounded out with an excursion to a current project. “During the program the students not only get to know our services, but also get to know each other – and then go away together and network, which is a huge plus,” says David Kuhn. All interns – no matter which Dreso regional office they are currently working in – attend the technical / professional presentations in Stuttgart and Frankfurt. Webinar technology makes it possible.

“And the fact that they are very quickly given the opportunity to work on projects shows them that ‘Good Ideas - No Limits’  is not an empty slogan, but a principle that is put into practice. They feel trusted and taken seriously from the start – and many of them stay on at Drees & Sommer as permanent employees.

From intern to member of the Executive Board

An internship can certainly be the foundation of a promising career: Dierk Mutschler – now a member of the Executive Board – started his career as an intern at Drees & Sommer.

Unfortunately, I haven’t made it onto the board yet, but my day may still come! :-)

If you are interested in an internship or a student job, check out our job market or our career section.