Rome, 9 June 2021

The EU4EU Programme facilitates the transition between university education and access to employment, through professional Erasmus+ traineeships at companies based in the EU.

The Programme gives the opportunity to students from Italian, Spanish and French Universities to match with more than 500 host organizations participating in the project

Today’s guest is Xenia Chronopoulou, Vice President and Managing Director at IDEC, a Small Medium Enterprise located in Piraeus, Greece, which was founded back in 1989. The company focuses its work on training, consulting, and high tech solutions. They mostly work with European funded projects which is also the area where most interns go to. IDEC has participated in more than 250 EU projects as partner, coordinator or applicant organization. The company cooperates with a network of more than 800 organizations across Europe.

Xenia and all the team from IDEC are extremely happy with the EU4EU Programme. It allowed them to hire different trainees from european countries, such as Italy and France. In Xenia’s opinion, the biggest benefit is that people from other countries can bring an international value to the team. “We are active throughout Europe and we work in English, but most of the people working here are from Greece”, she states. Hiring interns from different countries was beneficial: “It has led to a change of our workforce, in the mentality of the company.” According to her, there are many advantages in hiring people that come from somewhere else in Europe, “from the new ideas and different points of view they can bring, to the creativity they have.” she explains. In addition, they also had the possibility to hire some of the trainees they had in the past.

In order to find the trainees profiles that better fit IDEC’s requirements through the EU4EU Platform, they follow some simple steps. First of all Xenia makes a screening of all the applications received by emails, and then, the hiring team proceeds with the interviews of the students that match the requirements IDEC needs. “Normally we search for interns who are enrolled in a Master’s Degree; anyway if there is someone who shows real interest in learning and working with us we also take into account students with different backgrounds” Xenia says.

“The portal is very easy to use; it is fast, simple and intuitive at the same time” she says. Xenia and all IDEC team are highly satisfied with the EU4EU Platform and Programme; thanks to those tools they have been able to contact and select interns very easily.

When we asked about the last trainee’s daily tasks Xenia stated: “we have multiple projects, and we are collaborating mainly with the Erasmus+ Programme”. Adamantia helped the team a lot working in the submission of new proposals on ongoing calls; aside from the implementation of already approved proposals. She also worked on the dissemination, and wrote reports about it. She “was an active part of the team, working side by side with the project managers”, Xenia says.

Due to the crisis caused by the pandemic, and the consequent restrictions imposed by the Greek Government, all the IDEC team started working remotely. They had to work from home, having online weekly meetings in order to discuss new ideas and create a connection among the people part of the team. The trainee was very present and active; she also created quizzes that everyone had fun playing with. Overall, Ms. Chronopoulou was very happy and satisfied with her. “She was very good, always eager to learn, asking for new tasks and always delivering them on time”, Xenia states.

Xenia concluded the interview by highlighting again the importance of the EU4EU Programme and the benefits the host organizations can take from it. She wanted also to remind us that: “if you put effort in the internship it pays back. As manager you have to support the interns, and at the end they will always reward you.”