For career starters

Starting at Behr
The start-up program
Advancement and careers
Interview with a career starter at Behr

Starting at Behr
Do you want to take on demanding tasks and responsibilities right from the start for a system partner of the international automotive industry?

After graduation, take advantage of the opportunity to lay the foundation for your career at Behr.

You will start directly "on the job", where you will be systematically taught and supported by a mentor and by a personal orientation plan that your supervisor creates specifically for you. You will also participate in the start-up program.

The start-up program
For new employees, the starting point at Behr is the start-up orientation program that accompanies them as they adjust to their professional positions. Here, you will get to know the company, products, and services. Visits to several of our German production locations provide you with insight into the air conditioning and engine cooling product divisions. Seminars on the basics of cooperation at Behr round off the start-up program.

Advancement and careers
By taking advantage of our individual personnel development program, committed employees can pursue further intensive training courses and achieve their career objectives. Seminars and course programs for personal continuing education, as well as programs for today’s and the future's management, all contribute to attaining these goals. This also includes the high potentials program that prepares junior management for future duties or larger projects at Behr. See Personnel development .

Increasingly, temporary employment abroad at an international Behr subsidiary or affiliated company is also becoming an essential part of personnel development. Whether at Behr America or Behr Brazil, international experience provides career newcomers with additional development opportunities for advancing their careers thanks to the global Behr network .

Interview with a career starter at Behr

Claire Kern, career starter at Behr

How did Behr first come to your attention?
I first came into contact with Behr at a recruitment fair at Stuttgart University. In choosing my first job it was important to me to be able to apply the knowledge gained in my studies both theoretically and practically, in the area of development. This was why I took the initiative of sending an application to Behr after finishing my studies. I was offered a job that was exactly what I was looking for. I have now been working for Behr since October 2008 in the basic development of metallic materials.

What do you find appealing about your job?
What particularly appeals to me is that Behr offers even career starters the opportunity to play an active role in the development of innovative products. Here collaboration and mutual support within the team and with other departments plays a big part, allowing a very dynamic style of work. In my specific work area, I also find the close connection between theory and practice in laboratory work appealing.

What kind of support did you receive when you started working?
Job starters are very comprehensively looked after at Behr.

In the start-up program you and ohter job starters get to know the company and its products. My supervisor had prepared a structured orientation plan for me, which included training sessions and talks with departments associated with my area of work.

In addition to this, I was assigned a "mentor" from my work group, who had prepared my work station before my arrival, and who I could always go to with administrative questions. This support made the process of joining Behr very easy, and I was quickly able to concentrate on my job.

How do you perceive yourself in a research area dominated by male colleagues? How did you cope with this when you started work?
It is true, unfortunately, that there are still very few women working in this highly technical field-this was obvious even during my studies. Nonetheless, at Behr I was accepted as an engineer right from the start, just like my male colleagues. So I do not think women who want to work for Behr in technical fields face any obstacles.