JACOBS CAREER SYMPOSIUM 2021

The opening event of the yearly Jacobs Alumni Homecoming is devoted to challenging
issues in the fields of career development, the world of employment, and interactions
between higher education and society. Given the circumstances of the COVID-19 crisis,
this year’s event will again take place online. The “Jacobs Career Symposium”, is
organized as a Virtual “World Café” by the Career Services Center at Jacobs University.
It aims to foster a constructive discussion as well as networking opportunities between
alumni from all over the world, current students, professors, employers, and additional
experts.

Please register on JobTeaser in order to get the link to access the event!

Register now

In case you don’t want to register to JobTeaser and you are not a student of Jacobs University, please register writing an email to c.klaehn@jacobs-university.de

The primary goal of the Virtual World Café is to exchange ideas and experiences amongst the participants. The online format replaces the bistro tables of the “World Café” with break out rooms and the participants have to make the coffee themselves – but otherwise everything works as in the face-to-face version. The online session will be launched by the Head of Career Services Center Predrag Tapavicki, talking to the whole plenum.

Our alumna Lian Ryan-Hume (Najami), Israel’s first Arab Rhodes Scholar, will on-board the participants on the main theme „Future Skills”. The reflection on the World Café’s topic will be followed by the depiction of the different tables and their respective hosts.
Moderated by Sebastian Blümmert, Jacobs Alumnus, the participants will be “seated” at different tables being allocated to different rooms in Zoom. The participants “sit” together in small groups at bistro tables and work in a relaxed atmosphere. They discuss predetermined questions, exchange ideas, and network in constantly changing constellations. They discuss a given question for about 10 minutes before the groups are mixed again. Only the host stays in their room and receives the new guests to discuss with them further, working on the notes already taken by the former group. The event ends with a get-together, giving all hosts of the tables the opportunity to quickly present the main outcomes of the tables’ discussions.

The world of work is very dynamic. On one hand, skills that were essential yesterday are not required anymore. On the other hand, new demands arise on the employer’s side. In this light, future occupations will also require completely new skills. New roles will come into being, as other functions become obsolete.

Intense changes for the upcoming decade are predicted. The World Economic Forum foresees that we will need to reskill more than 1 billion people by 2030, as jobs are transformed by the Industry 4.0. Particularly, automation and machine learning will be in the center of interest. For instance, old roles requiring manual labor will disappear whilst automated systems will come into place. While this might improve our lives, students not in possession of the right skills are at risk of being left behind. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic will pay its toll.

• What should current jobseekers do in order to raise their employability?
• What can companies do to further develop their employees?
• How can universities prepare their students in the best way?
• What are the most needed skills besides of artificial intelligence, age care, creativity
• and emotional intelligence?

During the Career Symposium, future skills will be discussed from different perspectives:

1. NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION: How do they prepare? (Intellectual diversity, intercultural skills)
2. UNIVERSITIES: How does the University of Bremen prepare their students?
3. JOBTEASER (JOB PORTAL PROVIDER): What implicates the tendency to study several majors?
4. COMPANIES: What are the best practices to follow to develop employees?
5. STARTUPS: What does the Jacobs Startup Competition expect from students in order to be able to found a startup?

Please download the program here