Are the Europass and its documents useful for non-Europeans as well?
We asked some international students in Austria, who took part in a Training for building your future career (Europass, Euraxess and the Higher Education System)!
Alison Trachet from Florida is currently studying at the University of Salzburg on a Fulbright-Mach grant.
Alison learned the key steps to putting together a European resume and is planning on creating a resume in the Europass system.
Photo: @Colin Wheeler
Kevin Obiero from Kenya is in his first semester as a doctoral (PhD) student at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU) and is based at the Institute of Hydrobiology and Aquatic Ecosystem Management. He is supported by APPEAR.
He believes that since he is a young scholar and research scientist actively engaged in information dissemination, that there are no boudaries to developing networking skills that can "unlock the gates" for more opportunities both at national and global level.
Kevin thinks that the Europass and Euraxess websites offer a lot of guidelines and templates to craft and post CVs online as well as self-assessment of his language proficiency via a language passport. He is currently crafting his CV based on the Europass template and hopes to put it online soon.
Photo @ James Outa
Tanushree Gupta is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Conservation, National Museum Institute of History of Art, Conservation and Museology in New Delhi, India. Presently, she is an intern in the Institute of Conservation, University of Applied Arts, Vienna with support of a Ernst Mach grant.
Tanushree thinks that Europass is a practical tool for improving her CV. She is sure to keep using it in the future.
Foto: @Tanushree Gupta
Muhammad Bilal Bin Majeed comes from Lahore, Pakistan and received the scholarship for his PhD from the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in Pakistan. He is positioned at the VetMedUni, Vienna in the Clinical Division of Fish Medicine.
Muhammad learned that Europass is actually a set of of five documents that includes a CV, a language passport which is a self assessment online tool, a mobility passport for keeping a record of skills obtained in European countries, a certificate and diploma supplements for training certificates and education degrees respectively.
He thinks that these documents reflect his educational background and skills obtained and make it easy for students to present themselves when seeking a job in industry or a position in university.
He also believes that these documents help the potential employer/Professor to scrutinize the candidates and select the best.
When he goes back to his country after completing his PhD, he plans to ask his students to organize their stuff using Europass.
Photo: @Muhammad Bilal Bin Majeed