Master Placement Report
Placement at Activados International in
Hoofddorp, the Netherlands
Student: Arjanna ten Wolde, S2970791
Master program: International Relations – International Security Placement provider: Mr. P. Baeten
Placement coordinator: Mr. B. L. Aardema Date: 13-03-2020
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ... 2
Before the placement ... 2
During the placement... 5
The research... 5
Other tasks ... 7
Reflection of the placement ... 12
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INTRODUCTION
As a student of the Master program International Relations, it is obliged to do an internship. The compulsory internship is one of the reasons which made me choose this specific Master program since I was really looking for some practical experience. I decided to differ from the normal program and not do my internship and write my thesis in one semester. I did this because, on the one hand, I wanted to write my thesis well and deliver a work of good quality. On the other, I did it because I wanted to really benefit from my internship and develop myself, my work skills and learn a lot. To be able to do this, I wanted to do an internship for a period of at least 4 months. To do an internship of 4 months and to write a good thesis within one semester seemed a bit too much to me and thus I followed another path. I decided to work one semester on my thesis, while working for a company in Groningen for 4 days a week. Finally, after finishing the thesis and enjoying some free time, I started looking for an internship.
My internship took place at a company called Activados International, which is located in Hoofddorp in the Netherlands. What interested me a lot was that the company offers a range of services to foreign, mostly Spanish and Latin-American, companies, one-person businesses and private persons in order to help them establish their business and/or personal life in the Netherlands. During the internship, I conducted a market research for Activados and I helped them with other tasks which were related to research on laws and regulations, to administration and human resources and to marketing. What I can shortly conclude after my four months internship is that I have certainly developed myself in the context of working in an international and commercial setting individually and in a team. Moreover, I experienced how the theory that I learned during my Master became practice in my placement. I am satisfied with how my internship went and what I learned from it. Next to that, I am glad to have built up this practical experience which I hope to develop further in my future career from now on.
BEFORE THE PLACEMENT
In terms of my preparation, I went to the information meeting of the master internship and I had an appointment with Ms. Haag, who is a contact person for the career services of the Faculty of Arts, and I had meetings with my placement coordinator Mr. Aardema. In August 2019, I started writing my CV and cover letter and I began sending them to companies in the beginning of September. I
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turned to a range of methods to find a potential place to do my internship. I looked through the placement repository of the RUG, I repeatedly looked on ConNEXT, I looked on the website of the Dutch Government1 and I looked through some overviews of placements of RUG students of
different periods, which were provided on Nestor. While looking through all of these databases I found some interesting companies and organizations. When I found something that interested me, I also searched the internet for similar places. Eventually, I reached out to a total of five companies and organizations. Two of them were situated in the field of the provision of services to Spanish speaking persons in the Netherlands, two in the field of security and risk analysis and the other one was to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Not all the companies got back to me and thus I also called some of them to ask whether they had received my email. In the end, two of the five companies replied to my emails. One told me that their internship place was already occupied by someone and the other one was Activados International, which told me that they were interested.
I had chosen to seek contact with Activados because their provision of services and focus group interested me. During my master I did not maintain my Spanish language skills much. In order to maintain a good level of Spanish, I therefore really wanted to do my internship at a place where Spanish was a working language. Activados mainly has Spanish speaking clients and an international team of Dutch and Spanish employees. This interested me. Besides that, I wanted to develop myself more in the field of international business and marketing. Since Activados was a commercial company helping Spanish speaking people to start their businesses and/or personal lives here in the Netherlands, I considered the company a good place for my internship. After finding the company on the internet and finding out that they did not have any vacancy for an internship, I decided to send them an email in which I introduced myself and to which I attached my CV and a motivation letter for an open application at the company. After some email contact, I went to meet the director Mr. Baeten at the company. We both were interested in the internship and Mr. Baeten told me that during the placement he would like me to do an investigation related to a potential broadening of the company its market. For the second meeting he therefore asked me to prepare a research proposal. For this research proposal, I searched and read relevant literature and composed a proposal. After sending the proposal and some telephone conversations, a second meeting followed and then we eventually came to an internship agreement. We agreed on an
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internship period of four months, from Monday till Thursday, every day from 09:00 till 17:00. During this meeting, I also informed Mr. Baeten that I would go and live in Amsterdam during the period of the placement and that I was looking to rent something. As such, we gradually got to discussing a possible financial compensation and we made an agreement about it.
With regards to the expectations I had prior to the start of my internship, I would say that I went in quite blank. This was my first internship during my academic career and so I planned on having an open mind and just seeing how it would be. I did expect that I would have quite some personal and direct contact with customers. Before the start of the placement, the company and I had talked about some of the tasks that I would perform during the placement. One of the tasks that Activados mentioned was that I would participate in conversations with customers and that, if needed, I would write reports of this. Besides that, I would also interview some clients of Activados for the research, thus this would be another way in which I expected to have direct customer contact. Moreover, I expected that I would learn quite some things about working in a commercial, international area as both Activados and many of its clients fall under this header.
After making sure all the contracts were signed and everything was approved, I began my internship on the 4th of November 2019. Activados offers services to, mainly Spanish speaking, companies, one-person businesses and private persons located in the Netherlands. The company helps them establish themselves in the country as a business and/or as a private person. As such, they offer a range of services depending on the needs of their clients. For example, they help commercial clients with the registration at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce and they take care of the representation at the tax authorities and financial institutions. With regards to accountancy, they prepare tax declarations, annual accounts and they often act as the contact person for the companies to the Dutch tax authorities. Furthermore, the company arranges employment contracts, payroll services, working and residence permits and support for foreign employees, such as 30% ruling agreements. These are just some examples of the services offered to foreign business, but the companies can actually contact Activados for almost every doubt or issue they have. For private persons they offer help to get a Citizen Service Number and they offer advice on further registrations, insurances and taxes. For a large group of people, taxes are complicated when coming to a different country. Activados offers advice on taxes, but also does tax declarations for individuals. The company is situated on the same floor together with another company called Activa Groep. This company is a small advisory office specialized in administration, accountancy
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and tax advice. Activados and Activa Group work closely together and help each other out when needed.
The principal objective of the company is thus to make the establishment of foreign companies and private persons as successful as possible in the Netherlands. Currently, the company its main activities focus on doing the accountancy and bookkeeping for its clients and on arranging all the issues related to that. Activados is a small, but growing, company. At the moment, there are three people employed, including the founder and director of the company, Mr. Baeten. Furthermore, two self-employed people are performing services for the company. Not everyone works 5 days a week and their daily hours also vary. As mentioned before, it is an international team, composed of both Dutch and Spanish persons. Dutch, Spanish and English are therefore the working languages at the office. Since it is a small team and everyone sits together in the same office, you are in contact with everyone during the day. Personally, I really enjoyed this as it makes it easy to have a conversation with your co-workers and be socially active. For me, this is something that I appreciate having while working.
DURING THE PLACEMENT
As mentioned before, I have done a research for my placement provider and, next to that, I have undertaken other tasks. I will firstly describe the research that I have conducted and, after that, I will give a description of the other tasks.
The research
Before the start of my placement, Mr. Baeten explained to me that Activados its main clients were large international businesses. He told me that they would like to enlarge the share of private persons and one-person businesses in their clientele. As such, Mr. Baeten asked me to look into these particular markets and their needs. We chose to focus not only on Spanish speaking persons but also on persons who could be helped in English since offering the service in English or Spanish would not differ much for Activados.
In the first weeks of my internship, I focused more on Activados and their provision of services than the research. This was done intentionally because, in my view, you can best get to know a company and its services by seeing and experiencing it yourself. Once I knew what the
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company was about, I started interviewing both persons who were already clients of Activados and persons who were not. The objective of the interviews was to get some insight in the potential problems that foreign persons in the Netherlands deal with related to socio-cultural differences and tax declarations and bookkeeping. Together with Mr. Baeten and another coworker, we looked at some clients I could potentially do an interview with. This eventually led to a list of clients, both one-person businesses and private persons, who I contacted through email. Besides that, I also tried to get into contact with people who were not familiar with Activados. I did this by placing a post in various Facebook groups asking whether there were people interested in helping me with the research and whether I could interview them. Eventually, I got several responses on this. In total, I interviewed 7 different people, both clients and non-clients of Activados. I interviewed them by telephone or in person in either English, Spanish or Dutch. The information acquired by the interviews, together with some academic literature, formed the basis for the surveys I made for the research. During the time of doing the interviews, I regularly had contact with my placement provider about the information that I was acquiring and whether I should ask different things or do things differently.
The next stage of the research was to publish a survey in order to receive as much responses as possible from a public as diverse as possible. Since Mr. Baeten and I had discussed that we would like to target both Spanish speaking persons and persons who potentially could be helped in English, I made two, similar, versions of the survey. One in Spanish and one in English. The surveys were proofread by my placement provider and another coworker. This way we made sure that the survey was logical, relevant and functioning well. On the 28th of January, 2020, I put the surveys online for the first time. I posted them in several Facebook and LinkedIn groups specifically related to the target groups. Some examples are Españoles viviendo en Holanda, Españoles y latinos en Amsterdam, Expats in the Netherlands and Young Expats Netherlands. On the 17th of February, 2020, I took the survey offline. At that moment, I had received 64 responses
on the Spanish survey and 100 responses on the English survey.
I worked independently on the research and made a report of it for Mr. Baeten and other coworkers. After receiving some feedback on the report from Mr. Baeten, I rearranged and changed the report a bit, which eventually led to the final version of the report. This report was also communicated to the other coworkers. To finish the research, I held a small presentation about the
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most relevant findings and recommendations. After this, the team and I discussed everything and we came up with several ideas on how to go from there.
I believe the research was successful and did gain Activados some relevant information. For example, we agreed that there certainly is a place for Activados, as specialized provider of services, in the market and that there are many people who have an interest in this kind of provision of services. Next to that, we discussed two potential business methods for Activados to follow with regards to its focus group. The company could either focus mainly on Spanish speaking persons and ask a relatively higher price for the provision of its services or it could focus on both Spanish- and English-speaking persons and ask a relatively lower price. Furthermore, Mr. Baeten had asked me to look into the interests and needs of people regarding the option to do their tax declarations through an online form or system offered by Activados, since this is something that the company wants to develop. The results of the survey showed that this was something that a lot of people were interested in as well. This could of course lower Activados its hours per tax declaration, making the activity more efficient and leading to the fact that they could help more clients in the same time. These are just some of the results that the research has made clear, but as my placement provider said, the research has provided them with more insight in the needs of their market and has, at times, provided them with results that they did not expect. As such, the research has been valuable and can certainly be used when the company is ready to take steps themselves to grow.
Due to the research, I learned a lot about how foreign persons experience their settlement in the Netherlands and the problems they come across. This was also the first time that I conducted a market research and I found it very interesting to do and I would enjoy learning more about it in the future. I moreover learned to conduct interviews and I felt that I learned from every interview, leading to the fact that with every upcoming interview I felt more comfortable and knew better how to handle it.
Other tasks
Next to the research I also performed other tasks at the company. These tasks really let me experience what it is like to work at Activados, what kind of issues they deal with, what kind of clients they have, what their daily activities are, in short, they really made me get to know the company. I can divide the tasks that I have done in the following categories:
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2. Administrative tasks and tasks related to human resources; and 3. Marketing.
1. Doing research on laws and regulations
For persons coming to the Netherlands, especially companies and one-person businesses, it is sometimes complicated to fully know and understand all the laws and regulations that they have to follow. Activados helps with this. On the one hand, the company itself takes the initiative to do some research on certain laws in the case that it is clear that the new or changed laws and regulations (may) have consequences for some of Activados its clients. On the other hand, companies and one-person businesses contact Activados in the case that they have received a letter, for example of the Dutch government, in which it is stated that a new or changed law will come into effect and that it applies to them.
During my placement, it was my task to look into several of these new or changed laws. In the case that something needed to be looked into, Mr. Baeten gave me some background information first. After discussing this, I independently worked on doing the research. I could come to Mr. Baeten or other colleagues for questions or in the case that something needed to be cleared up. For every such task, I made a report in Dutch, English and/or Spanish, depending on the client. After finishing the reports, I would send them to Mr. Baeten. He would read the reports and give me feedback. In the case that certain things remained unclear, I would return to look for information and adjust the report, after which I would again communicate the report to my placement provider. Often the reports were quite extensive and after a few times I learned that it would be better to make summarized versions or to work with bullet points. Mr. Baeten would then eventually pass on the final reports to the clients. The reports were mainly used as informative documents and as guidelines to follow for Activados, its clients or both. They mentioned, for example, which procedures and steps needed to be taken and how this could be done. I will now discuss some of the tasks.
One of the research tasks that was relevant for multiple clients of Activados, mostly for big companies with primarily foreign employees, was the research which looked into the WagwEU, the Employment Conditions for Seconded Workers in the EU Act. As of the 1st of March, 2020, foreign employers and one-person businesses are required to notify themselves to the Dutch government when they have a temporary work placement in the Netherlands. For this case, I made
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a report in which I explained the Act, to which entities the duty to notify applies, how the process of notifying works and which information is necessary.
Another modified law which was relevant for some of Activados its clients was the WAB, the Labor Markt in Balance Act. Lots of the big companies for which Activados provides services work with flexible contracts. Since the modifications in the Act aimed at narrowing the gap between permanent contracts and flexible contracts by providing flexible employees with more certainty and making it more attractive to offer permanent contract, this Act is of high relevance for them. I made a report in which I explained what the Act was about, why it was modified and what the changes entailed.
I moreover made a report about eHerkenning. This is a new type of way in which companies can arrange your matters online. It is introduced as a type of DigiD for companies, which can be used to log in securely on websites of various governmental agencies, for example the Dutch Tax Agency, Chamber of Commerce, Employee Insurance Agency (UWV) and various pension funds. Naturally, every company registered in the Netherlands has to deal with some, if not all, of these agencies. Hence, Activados needed to know how the procedure works, what they have to do for their clients and what their clients have to take care of themselves. In the report I explained what eHerkenning is, how Activados its clients could authorize Activados with a so-called chain authorization, which forms needed to be filled in and which information was necessary for this, what steps needed to be taken and what the costs are.
Personally, I learned a lot from writing these reports. Firstly, I learned to arrange the reports in such a way that they would be easy to read and understand. Secondly, I learned about the ways in which some laws and regulations are applied to foreign businesses and persons. And thirdly, I learned to work even more independently and to reach out to official agencies like the Dutch Tax Agency or Customs.
2. Administrative tasks and tasks related to human resources
During my placement I also performed some administrative tasks and tasks related to human resources. Activados does the bookkeeping for many of its clients. As such, the company has to process the invoices for both sales and purchases of clients, process bank statements, do tax declarations and prepare annual reports. Doing the bookkeeping for clients is actually quite a large work activity within Activados. This is also because the bookkeeping of clients has to be updated
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on a regular basis. I was also able to assist with this and, hence, I regularly processed invoices of sales and purchases for clients. The processing of the invoices was done in an online bookkeeping software called Exact Online. After receiving some explanation from one of my coworkers I was able to do this independently. The processing of the invoices was a task that required quite some time, but also a task that was easy to start and stop with. Therefore, I often did this when I had completed other tasks and I had not been given other tasks yet.
Next to the administrative tasks, I also helped with tasks that concerned the personnel of some of the companies. As such, I took care of some employment contracts for example. Since most of the companies that are clients of Activados are international companies with international personnel, the contracts had to be drafted in a language that the employees could understand. Therefore, I translated some contract templates from Dutch to English. Next to that, I also had to draft some contracts in the sense that they were personalized and included the information of the employees. One of Activados its clients is a company which organizes a yearly World Bulk Wine Exhibition (WBWE) in the Netherlands. This is an event which lasts for 3 days and for which the company employs workers for one, two or all three of the days. For the past edition I have drafted the contracts of all 39 employees. A few weeks after the exhibition I also made an overview of the hours worked per person, their hourly salary and thus their total salary for the exhibition. This then was then sent to the salary administration of the WBWE.
I moreover made sure that the contracts were up to date by looking at the Collective Labor Agreements (CAO) of some sectors in which some of Activados its clients are operative. This was something which I did mostly around the turn of the year since many new CAO’s come into effect from the 1st of January onwards.
From doing these administrative and human resources tasks, I learned that there is a lot to take in mind when doing the bookkeeping and administration. It is certainly not that simple and straightforward as it looks. I think that the knowledge that I gained from doing this is very useful for both my further personal and work life. Moreover, I got to know how a bookkeeping software like Exact Online functions.
3. Marketing
As already mentioned before, Activados is a growing company. A growing company needs to keep up with the times and actualize their presentation. The company has got a website, but it is not up
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to date in the sense that some of the offered services presented on the site are services that Activados no longer offers. Moreover, there are some services that Activados does offer which are not presented on the website. Hence the company had launched a new website prior to the start of my internship, but it did not have any content yet and it was not yet public either. I was therefore asked to look at some things for the new website that could then be presented to the content creator that Mr. Baeten had hired. As such, I made an overview of all the services that Activados offers per client group, so for companies, one-person businesses and private persons. I did this in both English and Spanish. Besides that, together with some colleagues I selected a list of clients for the client page of the website and I did some research on a proper template for the general terms and conditions, which I then eventually adapted to be specifically for Activados. All these documents were sent to Mr. Baeten who forwarded them to the content creator of the new website.
When Activados had to send documents by post, they had always used letter paper and envelopes of Activa Groep. Now, with the development of a new website Activados also wanted a new company logo and its own letter paper and envelopes. For this, I got into contact with a visual designer from Argentina who was based in Amsterdam. I had a skype meeting with her in which I told her about the wishes of Mr. Baeten with regards to the design of the logo, letter paper and envelopes. After this, we had several other contact moments, often by email, where she sent me some designs and I would express the preferences of Activados. Eventually, we got to new and improved designs and these were then printed and delivered. I also made sure that the new logo and some other symbols were available for Activados in the format that was needed for their email template. Hence, they now also have a new and improved email design.
What I liked about these tasks is that I could really see a visible result of my work and effort. Moreover, I realized that developing a kind of image of a company through marketing is something that I enjoy doing and something that I could see myself doing more of in the future. All in all, it can be said that I worked very independently on the tasks given to me. However, whenever in doubt or when things were not fully clear I could always ask one of the coworkers to help me. Personally, I like this amount of independence because you can be fully focused on and responsible for the tasks that have been given to you.
During my placement I rented an apartment in Amsterdam. I was very lucky to find something that suited me in quite little time. For four months, I rented an apartment with my own
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kitchen, living room, bathroom and bedroom. As is expected in that part of the country, the rent was quite high. My total living costs per month, including the costs for groceries, for traveling and for going out from time to time, were about 1000 euro. I was able to be in the center of Amsterdam in around 20 minutes by public transport and it was very easy to visit friends who lived in different parts of the city.
Activados itself was located in Hoofddorp. It took me about 40 minutes to go from door to door as I first cycled to the train station and from there took the train to Hoofddorp. The company is located in an office building. As said before, Activados shares a floor with Activa, which has about 30 employees. This way, you see quite some people throughout the day and at lunchtime you often have lunch with a group of people. Another nice detail is that birthdays on the office floor get celebrated with a coffee and cake break for all employees.
For students who, after reading this placement report, are interested in doing a placement at Activados, I would encourage them to be proactive, to take initiative and to not be afraid of speaking their mind. At Activados it is very much appreciated to have discussions, present your insights and come up with solutions.
REFLECTION OF THE PLACEMENT
Before the placement I expected that I would have quite some personal and direct contact with some of Activados clients and people for the interviews. I did have this kind of contact with the persons I interviewed for the research and I enjoyed this, since I am someone who likes to have these social contacts with clients and hear their stories. However, next to that I did not have many client contacts. When clients had a problem or were in doubt, they would contact of Activados its employees and, on their turn, they would ask me to look into something. After finishing the report I would send it to my colleagues and they would then contact the clients again. I found this a bit disappointing because I think having this kind of contact is something you can learn a lot from. However, the issues the clients had were often quite specific and I can also understand that they would like to talk to someone who had a clear idea of their complete situation and/or company. I did learn about doing business in an international context. I learned that you certainly come across cultural differences when doing business with people from other countries. Thanks to the international character of Activados its team, they could often understand the behavior and actions
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of certain Spanish or Latin-American clients. However, Activa, which only has Dutch employees, from time to time expressed their annoyance or frustration with some of Activados clients to us. This would then be explained by Activados as a cultural difference. As such I could really see intercultural encounters and conflicts taking place in practice and this strengthened my insight of intercultural and identity-related differences.
Something I did not expect was that bookkeeping and accountancy comprise such a large part of the work of Activados. I enjoy learning a lot of new things and I think that it is very useful to have some knowledge of bookkeeping and accountancy, however I did like this part of the work the least. I said the same thing to Mr. Baeten and another coworker and they certainly understood where I was coming from. This contributed to the fact that I would help with these more administrative tasks, especially when I had finished all other work, but the majority of the tasks that I performed were not related to the bookkeeping and accountancy. I think talking about this was a good thing to do and it also helped Activados because they are not really used to having interns either and hence they also have to find out what kind of work they can give to the students.
Another thing that I did not expect was that Activados no longer offers business development. This was mentioned on the website and included services like feasibility studies, market research, marketing and promotion and research on market entry strategy. When my internship had already started, Mr. Baeten told me that this was something that they no longer focused on since it was more lucrative to only focus on the business support services. I would have liked to learn more about business development since this is an area which really interests me. However, I did get a taste of it while doing the research for Activados. I researched the market possibilities for Activados and I also looked at ways in which the marketing and promotion of the company could be done. So even though the business development was not for a client, I kind of took matters into my own hands with this and looked at how Activados as a company could develop further.
As mentioned, I would send the reports to Mr. Baeten after I finished them in order to receive some feedback on them. In the beginning of my internship this went perfect. I would get feedback within a few days and then I could easily change some things if needed. However, during the last months the feedback on some reports got a bit delayed. December and January are busy months for Activados, but this led to the fact that I received the feedback very late. When I then eventually got the feedback and needed to look into something more specifically I would need to
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familiarize myself with the topic again, which sometimes took a lot of time. In the beginning I did not really know how to deal with this because I did not want to be the one saying that they had to look at the reports when they already had that much work. However, I also knew that clients were waiting for some clarity. Therefore, I eventually took the step to remind Mr. Baeten about the reports a few times. This was not at all seen as inappropriate by my colleagues. For the next time, I think I should take steps like this sooner because as long as you are polite and your intentions are right I think reminding your superiors of something that needs to be done will only be appreciated.
My placement has certainly made me more aware of the actual practical experiences of intercultural communication in business. This has made me even more convinced of the need for intercultural understanding. I followed the research seminar Culture, Fear and Identity in Contemporary Europe, which is more focused on identity related threats and fears in a political context, but I now also experienced this in the context of doing business, all though on a smaller and different scale. I believe my intercultural knowledge did indeed contribute to having an open mind when having contact with people from different countries during my internship or when I heard stories from Activa employees about how annoyed they were with some Spanish client for example. During my internship, I also learned about the sentiments that people have when coming to a different country. All of this is related to identity and culture as well. A large part of the respondents of the surveys I conducted came to the Netherlands for work reasons. In the research seminar Political Economy of Migration we often discussed about labor migrants and the welfare states. Again, during my internship I saw the practical side of the theories often talked about in these classes. For example, in the Netherlands we have a 30%-ruling for high skilled workers, enabling them to have a tax advantage for a couple of years while working in the Netherlands. On the contrary, I often heard stories of low skilled workers, especially temporary workers, coming to the Netherlands and finding out that they had to live with too many people in one house, that they did not get paid well and other horrible circumstances. I learned in the research seminar that the Dutch migration policy is indeed very selective and favors high skilled foreign workers over low skilled foreign workers. This is thus also visible in legislation and social protection. In that way, theory really became practice for me.
While thinking about future career prospects, I can say that my placement certainly played a role in offering me somewhat clarity. My placement made me realize that I would definitely like to continue to work in an area in which I could be offering services to foreign companies and or
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persons. I really liked doing research on various laws and regulations and being able to help solve problems or clear up some doubts of foreign clients with this. Preferably, I would like to do this in a commercial, private setting in, for example, a multi- or international company. Nonetheless, I would also be open for such a career in the public sector, for example at the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The husband of one of my coworkers also works here, so in case I am sure about wanting to pursue a career there, I could always ask him for help. What still remains a bit unclear for me is the kind of function I could fulfil in such a company or organization. This also makes it a bit complicated when looking for vacancies, but I am convinced that I will eventually find something that suits me. Currently I am looking for vacancies in the north of the country, so Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe. I enjoyed my stay in Amsterdam and Hoofddorp for four months, but it also made me realize that, at least for now, I would like to live in the north. For me, Groningen is a city in which you have everything you need, but at the same time it is quite small and has an easygoing and relaxed ambience. I kind of missed this during my time in Amsterdam.
Due to the large amount of administrative related work at Activados, I would not have liked to stay there after my internship. As said before, this is not something I really enjoy doing nor something that I find challenging for myself. Of course I could perform other tasks as well, but these tasks did not have enough workload for a full-time job from both my perspective and Mr. Baeten his perspective. Nevertheless, Mr. Baeten and I did agree on a temporary, part-time job after the internship. As long as I do not have another job yet and as long as Activados has work for me, I am working for them from home. I really appreciate this opportunity and I am glad that the company wants to maintain this work relation with me.
CONCLUSION
During my placement I thus learned a variety of things. To begin with, I developed insight into the experiences of the client groups, which are also the groups of people I would be interested in working with in the future. These are foreign, mainly Spanish speaking, companies, one-person businesses and private persons. I also got to know a lot about specific laws and regulations which apply to these groups. Next to that, I realized that I enjoy doing market research and to engage in marketing and promotion. The placement also enabled me to develop my working skills further since I worked both individually and in teams on different cases and tasks. I enjoyed this balance
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very much. With regards to the connection with my academic career and my placement, I finally got to see how the theory I learned, takes place in practice. This is something that I very much appreciate since I wanted to develop myself more practically for some time now. Moreover, I have been able to develop my research skills even more and I realized that the research skills that I learned during my academic career really did come of use in a working context.
I am very glad that I had the opportunity to do a placement and that it turned out so well. I find myself more prepared for the future now since I have practical experience with working in an international field and because I developed my theoretical knowledge on these specific focus groups and in this specific work area as well.
