Have you taken your first steps as a young professional and are you keen to work at a leading top-100 university? Are you looking to develop yourself and give your career a boost? If so, a place on the UG’s two-year Traineeship Young Professionals could be exactly what you need. On 1 April 2022, fourteen young professionals will start with the development and training programme. Half of the participants will be recruited externally while the other seven trainee spots will be filled by current UG staff members/young professionals.

If you are interested in the experiences of the 2019-2021 cohort of UG trainees, make sure to watch this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KEOnFJRTBA)!

What you will be doing as a trainee

As a trainee, you will be given the unique opportunity to develop yourself both personally and professionally in a dynamic, academic environment. The available assignments are diverse. Every assignment contributes in an active and practical manner to the work processes and activities of the faculty or service unit in which you will be deployed.
As a trainee, you could, for example, take on the role of project leader, project secretary, or policy officer. There are trainee assignments available in various domains, such as communication, HR, finance, marketing, teaching, research, quality assurance, and legal affairs, and at various organizational components, i.e. faculties and service units.

Your traineeship

A paid two-year traineeship at the UG is a personal voyage of discovery. You will work intensively together with fellow trainees and trainers/coaches, who will help you with the next steps of your career, challenges, and personal growth.
Within your traineeship, one day a week will be set aside to work on your own development, core competences, skills, and learning goals. You will follow a coherent training programme and will gain an understanding of, for example, social and communicative skills, project-based working, and (self-)management. In addition, the programme will partly be shaped by the needs of the trainees. In short: it will be a wonderful adventure.

What is required of a trainee:

● external candidates must have a degree from a university or university of applied sciences by the start of the traineeship on 1 April 2022
● you should have a maximum of two years worth of work experience
● in addition to your previous education, your curiosity and involvement should also be demonstrated by your administrative, international, or other relevant experience and activities, either work-related or other
● you must be able to work autonomously and in a wide variety of positions, you should be proactive in both your thinking and acting, not be afraid to step outside your comfort zone, have a healthy dose of self-awareness, and be able to work at various levels
● the selection will be based on the competences of analytical thinking, collaboration, taking initiative, result-focused working, and self-reflection
● a good command of both written and spoken Dutch and English.

Fixed-term contract: 24 months.

What we offer our trainees (in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities):

● interesting assignments at various faculties/service units within the UG
● switching work places and assignments after one year
● a two-year development and training programme with fellow trainees
● supervision by experienced trainers and coaches
● peer support from fellow trainees and the option to have consultations with a mentor
● a full-time appointment for two years (1.0 FTE), with the prospect of a permanent contract after a positive evaluation
● a salary based on salary scale 9.0 in the first year € 2,979 gross per month and scale 9.1 in the second year € 3,122 gross per month for a full-time appointment
● the option to choose a work week of 36, 38, or 40 hours (based on full-time employment)
● a minimum of 29 days of holiday leave, and in the case of a 40 hours work week, 12 extra days of holiday leave
● an 8% holiday allowance and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus over the annual gross income.

Office of the University

The University of Groningen is a broad-based university with a global outlook, deeply rooted in Groningen, the ‘City of Talent’. Quality has been our top priority for over four hundred years, ensuring that the UG ranks among the top-100 universities worldwide. The UG has approximately 7,500 staff members, and 36,000 students spread over 11 faculties are studying here. It is therefore one of the largest universities of the Netherlands.
The UG is an academic community with a strong sense of solidarity and a culture of innovative teaching and research. Its innovative strength is used to tackle academic and societal challenges and enables its students to become active, independent, critical, and responsible global citizens.
The UG is led by its core values when it comes to generating knowledge to increase the understanding of the world around us and applying this knowledge in a sustainable way for the good of people and society. These core values are academic freedom, integrity, inclusiveness, sustainability, and openness.