Career guidance packed with creativity, information and sustainability

Insights into the media industry

The FORUM MEDIA GROUP has been happy to take part in the campaign day for years. Overall, the Group has a high proportion of women at around 75%. However, this varies greatly depending on the professional field. While many women work in marketing, for example, it is mainly men who work in IT. Accordingly, Girls’ Day and Boys’ Day offer a good opportunity to ensure a balance in the future.

The Group’s trainees and students traditionally prepare the event and once again showed great commitment this year under the guidance of Daniela Krauss, Head of HR and Training at FORUM VERLAG HERKERT GMBH, and her colleague Mara Dittebrand from FORUM Zeitschriften und Spezialmedien GmbH. After the presentation of the media group and its Merching subsidiaries, the school students were invited to play a warm-up game on career orientation. This was followed by a question and answer session with Katrin Krauß-Herkert, COO/CFO of the FORUM MEDIA GROUP. She talked about her exciting professional career, which ultimately led her to the management of the family company after studying mechanical engineering, and was happy to answer the many questions from the participants.

Daniela Krauss (left), Training and HR Manager at Forum Verlag Herkert GmbH, and Katrin Krauß-Herkert, CFO/COO of the FORUM MEDIA GROUP, welcomed the participants to Girls’ Day and Boys’ Day 2025 in Merching.

Creative and sustainable career exploration

The rest of the morning was dedicated to presenting the nine different training programs and dual study opportunities available at the Merching site. The current trainees and students first presented these themselves and described their day-to-day work and previous successes, as well as the challenges they face.

The highlight of the day was a creative recycling activity, which also offered the opportunity to delve even deeper into different professions. Divided into nine groups, the pupils rotated to different career stations. There they learned more about everyday working life and glued utensils symbolizing the respective profession onto discarded hairdressers’ heads. Old hairdressers’ heads and scrap metal were transformed into real art objects – a great example of sustainability and creativity! At the end, the pupils presented their pieces and even gave them names. “The commitment of the school students and the intense preparation of the trainees made this day an extraordinary success,” says Daniela Krauss.

Extensive involvement in the area of career guidance

Forum Media Goup is also involved in career guidance and preparing pupils for their future working lives beyond the campaign day. Last Tuesday, April 8, three teachers visited the office building in Merching with two 9th grade classes, i.e. around 55 young people, from the Realschule Mering, a nearby secondary school, for on-site job application training. Daniela Krauss and Mara Dittebrand presented our occupational fields and apprenticeships and also addressed traditional application topics such as application letters and CVs. Afterwards, the classes were divided into groups and simulated job interviews with a recruiter. The pupils were given a job advertisement for an occupational field and were invited to participate in a job interview. The aim was to give them a feel for how an interview works and what questions they might be asked. This was followed by an introduction to the assessment center. A typical exercise was picked out and simulated. The task was a role play: “Organize the school prom”. The young people were immediately involved and got a good impression of what to expect at an assessment center.

A team of our trainees led by Daniela Krauss also visited the fitforJOB! training fair in Augsburg on March 15, which attracted around 200 exhibitors and some 6,500 visitors. The stand was very well received with its popcorn machine and a new colorful trade fair display. On March 20, FORUM then attended the careers orientation day at the Realschule Mering, where the team also presented the wide range of apprenticeships on offer.