Interview with Julius Krieg - Apprentice industrial clerk
Why did you apply to W.AG?
When I was about to graduate, like everyone in my class, I found out about possible apprenticeships and, accordingly, about training companies. Being close to home was a very important point for me.
As I have friends who work at W.AG, I had a chat with them, which sparked my interest. I then looked at the homepage and realised that I was impressed by the product portfolio. The fact that we can fulfil virtually every customer request in terms of individual case solutions is still amazing to me today.
So it was clear to me that I would apply to take a closer look at the whole thing.
Which departments have you worked in? What does your daily work involve?
By the end of my second year of training, I had already worked in all the departments that we have. To name just a few, these include sales, purchasing, marketing, secretarial services, accounting, production control, and so on.
In the various departments, you actually get to know all the processes in an industrial company. These are mainly taught in practice and not just in theory. There are actually no tasks that a normal employee does that you don’t do as an apprentice.
This includes creative tasks such as creating adverts in marketing or planning tasks such as scheduling orders in the production process of order preparation.
What do you particularly enjoy about your work?
I have fun with many things at work. But my favourite thing is the customer contact. Discussing projects on the phone or even in person and working together with the customer to create the best possible product is just great. Of course, the variable scheduling also comes into play here.
It’s much more convenient that you can schedule your tasks in such a way that you can choose when to contact which customer and which task to complete first. This not only makes work more fun, but also encourages each individual to take responsibility and work independently.
What characterises W.AG? Would you recommend an apprenticeship at W.AG?
For me, W.AG is characterised by many things. To name a few, for example, the employee events such as summer parties and Christmas parties, the flat hierarchies, spontaneous holiday planning if something should come up, etc. Another very important point for me is the constant drive to improve training and working conditions in general. We trainees can make suggestions for improvement at any time, e.g. if we think a department makes a lot of sense, we can suggest working longer hours there.
In general, we can always go to our trainers and say what bothers us or what we think is very good so that we can improve our training ourselves. I can therefore recommend W.AG to any prospective trainee who is enthusiastic about team spirit and interested in becoming a suitcase expert.
What are your chances of being taken on?
So when I think about it and think about the trainees from the past, they must be very good. I was already told at the end of my second year of training that they were already planning to take me on. I was also told that my further training after the apprenticeship would be supported. I’m planning to study at night school to gain further qualifications.
What is your relationship like with the trainers and the other trainees?
I would say very good. Both the trainers and the trainees are nice and what is also very important is that we are all on an equal footing. Nobody does their own thing here. We usually spend our breaks together and also have lots of projects together where we have a lot of fun as a team. But what I like most is the great camaraderie between us, which is also reflected in the fact that everyone supports each other.