Guidelines to the Matching Phase for students

The registration phase ended and I am now registered in the portal. My profile has been accepted and I received a confirmation email saying that I am eligible to access the Matching Phase with Host Organisations. What should I do now? How can I get in touch with companies?

Now, the matching phase starts. The matching phase is the phase during which students and Host Organisations can see each other’s profiles and get in contact if the profiles correspond.

 

In this document, you will find the 6 steps that you must follow to successfully complete the matching phase.

I- Look for companies

If your profile is approved, the first thing to do once you are registered into the portal is to look for companies.
However, you can only look for companies once the matching phase starts so you have to wait to be able to see Host Organisations if your profile was accepted before the end of the registration phase.

 

At the top of your profile page, you will find a button “Search for Host Organisation”, if you click there you will get the list with every company on our database looking for trainees. When you click on a company, you will get every detail about the internship they are offering.

In the Search Hosts Page you can filter the hosts and see their profiles by clicking on their legal names. You can apply some filters such as duration of the internship, language level, etc.
II- Contact the Host Organisations that interest you

In the Host Page you will find information and details of the Host Organisation.

Once you see one or more Host Organisations that caught your attention you may contact them through email to propose yourself for an interview.

A- Send an email to the Host Organisation

 

To contact the Host Organisation, you can write in the title of your email “EU4EU internship application – (Your Name and Surname)”. In the text of your email, you can write that you would like to apply for a traineeship with a scholarship within the EU4EU project, explain briefly the reasons for your interest in that organisation, invite the organisation to view your profile on the Portal EU4EU and propose yourself for an interview.

 

You can find an email template here: https://eng.eu4eu.org/template-email/. You can use this template for every company, you only need to adapt it.

 

One important tip is to contact as many companies as you can (you can contact around 10 different companies). This will increase your chances of getting an internship. However, you should not contact more than 10 Host Organisations at the same time. You may send a new request after 2 days have passed without receiving a response.

B- Send an email inviting the company to join the EU4EU programme

 

If you want to do an internship at a specific company and they are not a part of the EU4EU programme, you can send them an email inviting them to join the programme. You can find a template here: https://eng.eu4eu.org/template-email/.

 

The Host Organisation has to be eligible and registered on the EU4EU Portal by the end of the matching period. The application procedures are the standard ones. If you are in contact with a Host Organisation that would like to host you, send them this link to find more information on EU4EU for Host Organisations.

 

Please note: If the Host Organisation does not meet the eligibility and suitability requirements established in the Call for Host Organisations, it will not be considered eligible. In this case you can still choose a different Host Organisation that you will find in the Portal.
III- Answer to the Host Organisations contacting you

This is an important part of the matching phase as well. Some companies will directly contact you because your profile is interesting to them. In this case, you should answer as quickly as possible (maximum 2 days). During the matching phase, it is important to be reactive and to check your emails often.

 

You should always answer to Host Organisations, either to give a positive or negative answer. If you are not interested in doing an internship with a company, let them know! The same goes if you got a positive answer from another company and you are no longer looking for an internship, you should let the other companies know that so they can look for other trainees. This will allow other students the opportunity to receive that internship proposal.

 

To sum up: be reactive and always answer to companies.

IV- Do the interview

When you finally get an interview proposal, prepare the interview in advance so you will get higher chances of getting the internship.
You can find a lot of websites with tips on how to get ready for an interview.

 

You can find some tips on how to prepare for your interview here.

 

Please note: An important thing when doing an interview with a foreign company is to check how interviews usually go in the country of the Host Organisation. In fact, the rules and expectations change from one country to another so it’s good to prepare for that.

V- Upload the Letter of Availability into your profile

Once you get a positive answer after an interview you will be able to upload the Letter of Availability into your profile.

 

Please note: If more than one Host Organisation sent you a Letter of Availability you must upload just one of them on the Portal, the one from the Host Organisation you chose for carrying out your internship. Without any delay inform the Host Organisation you didn’t pick, in order to leave that offer to other students.

 

If the outcome of your interview is positive, the Host Organisation will send you the “Letter of Availability” via email. You will need to communicate with the Host Organisation to help fill out the availability letter and agree on the contents. If you want to accept the traineeship offered you must print the Letter, sign it and upload it in your personal page in the EU4EU Portal. To do this go to your page and you’ll find the new button “Letters of Availability”.

Here you’ll find the name of the Host Organisation that sent you the Letter of Availability. Sign the Letter and upload it in the “file upload”.

 

Once uploaded you’ll receive a confirmation message by the page.

 

Remember that in the event of a balance between two or more candidate trainees, the ranking priority is established based on the order of arrival of the applications. So, the sooner you upload the Letter of Availability, the better chance you have of being awarded the scholarship.

 

Finally, when you upload the Letter of Availability to your account, your application will be completed. Your profile will no longer be visible to Host Organisations and you will no longer be able to view the profiles of Host Organisations.
VI- Wait for the results

The last step is to wait for the results to know if you got the scholarship. This will be held after the end of the Matching Phase.

Mar. 16.05.023