The need of young people in Albania for professional development and career opportunities is very high. Albanian youth is energetic, ambitious, and has dreams. This was also proved in the first call for applications of the Internship and Employment program from B4Students, a program dedicated to students, which is already supporting them in various forms. More than 500 internship applications were sent from students of various universities in Albania within a month, through the special platform www.b4students.com.

This year, the Internship and Employment program of B4Students is organized in cooperation with 10 companies of BALFIN Group, where a significant number of students who have applied will develop their professional internship during the period September 15th – December 15th 2021.

The selection of students will be carried out through interviews by the Human Resources experts of the companies where they have applied, namely: ACREM (which manages the shopping centres of TEG and QTU), Albchrome, Neptun Albania, Fashion Group Albania, Jumbo Albania, Mane TCI, Milsped Albania, Stella Mare, SPAR Albania and Tirana Bank. The interviews will end on September 10, 2021, so that the winners can join the companies as soon as possible.

According to the program manager, Oltjon Valisi, B4Students is giving its results: “Banking activity, retail and services area, turn out to be three of the most preferred industries by students, while the companies with the highest number of applications are Tirana Bank, Neptun Albania, Fashion Group Albania and ACREM. The internship profiles that have attracted the attention of students the most are Technology & Information and Sales/Retail from Tirana Bank, Finance & Accounting from Neptun Albania and Leasing from ACREM”- he says.

With the Internship and Employment program, B4Students aims to contribute to the professional training of students in Albania and their integration into the labour market at an early stage, allowing them to create the work experience in the desired profile, to develop knowledge and new skills, to build contacts and cooperate with professionals from BALFIN Group companies, which, based on the interns’ performance, will propose employment opportunities.

The possibility for employment in BALFIN companies is high and this is also confirmed by Elvin Nosi, Director of Human Resources of the Group, who states that “based on the data over the years, it results that over 32% of interns manage to get employed by us during or after their professional internship, and over 98% of them would recommend the Group companies to other students”.

B4Students started in May of this year with the Business Ideas Competition, where two business projects from students Erasmia Varfi, Kejli Doda and Ilda Haxhiu were provided grants and mentoring support. The Internship & Employment component is the second activity in a row, to be followed by the Business Challenge Competition, where students will be invited to analyse a real economic activity challenge and propose solutions. Applications for this competition will start on September 20, 2021. Until the end of the year, students in university clubs will have the opportunity to become part of the call for project ideas with a social focus, which will support the winners with grants and counselling.