The first edition of the UNIgreen Career Fair took place on 30 April 2024 and was held in a webinar format.
Hosted by Prof Vladislav Popov (Agricultural University – Plovdiv), the event focused on the topic “Navigating Your Career: Key Skills for Thriving in Multinational Environments”. It aimed to generate a dialogue about the skills required to succeed in the labour market, with a particular focus on a multinational – and multicultural – environment.
The first part of the event revolved around the personal reflections on working in a multinational environment shared by three keynote speakers, and based on their own career paths.
- Radko Hristov: Nutrition & Crop Enhancement Business Development Manager EMEA at Bayer
The journey to a successful career is not a short-term effort but a rather relatively long process. For the multicultural companies, it is important to see that you are constantly striving to increase and upgrade your knowledge/skills and collaborate with other experts. For instance, nowadays for the companies is not enough to hire employees/ experts with completed MSc level of education, but rather PhD degree is becoming must. It is because they want to see that you are upgrading your analytical skills and improving your “solving problem” attitude.
Multinational companies are capable of providing opportunities for expanding your ideas, freedom of experimentation, implementing your skills and transfer experience to other experts, etc.
The employees, especially young graduates, need aspiration to perform best in very dynamic and challenging working environment. The challenge is to adapt when this dynamic environment is getting you out of your comfort zone.
- Frédéric Bracke: Head of Soil and Polluted Sites Department at CSD Ingenieurs
Even if you change from one job to another, you have to keep your curiosity and upgrade regularly your knowledge and skills in the area.
Meeting with and working with other experts from different nationalities gives you opportunity to share perspectives and reflect on EU challenges that you have never thought before. Adaptation is the key.
Companies have increasing expectations that you have to be multitasking, so therefore, extra qualities are needed e.g. establishing and keeping a solid network of experts and specialists and having developed soft skills.
Stay focused on your job tasks but be open minded for recent developments e.g. EU green directives, dynamic legislation, etc.
- Maria Alexandrova: Head of Innovation Projects and Sustainability at Nasekomo
You have to learn how to foresee the future changes and challenges.
In multinational and multicultural environments, you have to learn to accept differences between people, their different views and ideas, their personal and professional targets.
Environmental awareness, green thinking, responsiveness to global challenges and personal commitment are among the most important criteria to accept them in the company.
The green business will prevail in the coming decades, so therefore openness to innovations and courage to implement these in the daily practice will be critical for the employees as well as for the employers.
Women are more open to green innovations and green thinking (e.g. bioeconomy) and they would easily adopt them in a company environment.
The second part of the event featured a panel discussion on the topic “Bridging the gap between Higher Education and global business ecosystems”.
Under the moderation of Prof Vladislav Popov (Agricultural University – Plovdiv), our keynote speakers shared some valuable insights on the skills that students should develop in order to thrive in the green job market:
- Respect your education background knowledge and skills, because this is the basis that you can build upon when starting a new position or changing the existing one.
- Build your entrepreneurial skills, e.g. you may follow an extra training before or during your job placement.
- Present what you think will be beneficial for the company and for yourself, be meaningful.
- Companies may, during the course of your adaptation to the working environment, turn your green thinking, but they need to see desire to learn and pro-active attitude.
- Investing in continuing education, make it practical and useful, turn your mindset into “solution-oriented”.
- Big companies (e.g. Bayer) are targeting at present organisations/universities that are teaching “green tech”, because they are changing their approaches, which is dictated by the European Green Deal and the political/economic trends.
- If you decide to upgrade your competences, by e.g. undertaking a PhD study, make sure you are choosing the “right” topic of research (dissertation thesis) the entrepreneurs read the signs you signal with the topic and may re-direct your career in the right direction, which best suits your professional aspirations.
- The strong professional background, on the basis of solid BSc and MSc education is very important.
- Cultural differences in the company must be respected and you have to learn how to adapt to them.
- Open mindset and responding to global environmental problems and challenges is a must.
