Internships that are limited to making coffee or filing documents no longer align with today’s understanding of talent development—and have never been part of our approach at COFERMIN. We do not view interns as short-term support, but as our future specialists and leaders. It is therefore important to us to offer them genuine insights, responsibility, and opportunities for growth right from the start.
Our approach is deliberately clear and well-thought-out: Interns are actively integrated into our daily work, supported, and developed both professionally and personally. This is exactly how we began our collaboration with our current intern, Theodor.
Theodor is 19 years old, comes from Essen, has just graduated from high school, and is currently completing a three-month internship in Finance & Controlling at the COFERMIN Group. Theodor’s motivation for pursuing this voluntary internship was clear from the start: to find out whether a career path and a degree in economics would be a good fit for him.
His decision to choose COFERMIN was based on a clear rationale. He was specifically looking for an internship that went beyond superficial insights. The combination of Finance & Controlling at a medium-sized company active internationally in the industrial minerals trade seemed particularly appealing to him.
As expected, the first few days were filled with many new experiences: new colleagues, new processes, and new areas of focus. However, instead of isolating Theodor with individual tasks, we actively involved him from the very beginning. Conversations with employees from different departments, insights into various companies, and a gradual introduction to the bigger picture helped him quickly develop an overall understanding of how we work. It also became clear that controlling at COFERMIN is not just dry number-crunching, but is closely linked to the operational trading business as well as to current political and economic conditions.
This is what makes working at COFERMIN so interesting for many of our employees—they gain insights beyond their own field of activity and work hand in hand with other teams.
At COFERMIN, we place great importance on actively involving our interns in day-to-day operations. The goal is for them to take on responsibility wherever possible, learn about processes, and contribute to specific tasks or smaller projects. After a short onboarding period, Theodor was already assisting with the preparation of payment lists, reconciling payments, and processing invoices. The tasks were deliberately structured to be challenging yet easy to follow.
In Theodor’s opinion, the open and supportive teamwork was particularly helpful.
“Asking questions was never awkward or out of place. From the very beginning, I was made to feel that every door was open—and my questions were always answered in detail and in a way I could understand,” Theodor describes his experience. “That gives you confidence and a good feeling about your own work.”
Theodor’s time at COFERMIN demonstrates what makes a successful internship: genuine insights, active involvement, and a corporate culture that fosters growth.
We are delighted to have supported Theodor over the past three months and feel reaffirmed in our commitment to nurturing young talent and offering them early guidance and opportunities—and who knows, perhaps our paths will cross again in the future.
