STEP
STEP
Student Trainee Exchange Program
STEP in Montenegro as cherry on the cream..! ELSA Montenegro offered it’s first STEP traineeship this summer
The trainee participated in jobs like admission and elaboration of the inquiries for credit, admission and control of clients’ documentation, in jobs for analyzing and completing documentation in order to get higher quality for credit insurances. In addition the trainee attended credit realizations. All tasks required knowledge of the Financial and Banking Law. We provided salary for the trainee and accommodation in student dormitory, which is few minutes from the office. Our plan was to find one or two more traineeships at the same time and get an ELSA Montenegro House for the trainees, but that plan will have to be a future goal to work toward! If you ask me how I felt after arranging our first traineeship, I would tell you; as eating a last cherry on the cream! It was a pure pleasure working with a team of highly motivated people. Having a traineeship in Montenegro also is a proof that our National Group is active, because STEP is one of the core activities of ELSA. STEP show us what true ELSA spirit is!
There can be a few problems when you become a Vice president for STEP, such as lack of knowledge in your team, or no team at all. But I would say the real problem is when you are starting with STEP and there has never been STEP before in your country. It was a real challenge. I spent one year trying to collect all pieces of STEP and finding people who as a first thing understand the purpose of being a STEPer, and what STEP truly means to the network. I spent almost one year doing this and trying to show that ELSA is different because of STEP. So what does STEP really means? It is hard to find a proper definition that can be unique. But for those who enjoyed student hunting and job hunting it is obvious that STEP is the heart of the network. Mirko Djukovic, VP STEP ELSA Montenegro
I also need to thank all STEPers for promoting our job, which resulted in 7 applications for this traineeship. "Prva Banka Crne Gore" chose Miss Zorica Velkovska, the President of ELSA Republic of Macedonia to be the elected trainee. We decided to make this traineeship unforgettable for our trainee and there is no better way to do it than exploring our coast. We had magnificent Saturdays and as an important outcome we all experienced some ELSA-spirit.
nally informed me that we have one job. The first traineeship after almost two years of hard work on informing people about STEP and building our team, we had our first one month job. It was in Prva Banka Crne Gore, one of the best recognized banks in Montenegro.
Now after this first traineeship we are encouraged to make our new plan for STEP and to be more active in job hunting. It was amazing to read the "Organization Evaluation Form" with best marks for our devotion working for ELSA. We got a great recommendation and "Prva Banka Crne Gore" is open for further traineeships. Now we have to use this potential, get more jobs and bring in more students so we can enjoy again the feeling of being part of the network. One problem that still remains is student hunting, but this year we prepared new brochures and we hope that soon also students from Montenegro will be encouraged to apply for STEP-jobs throughout the ELSA-network.
Finally this year ELSA Montenegro succeeded at job hunting, we officially offered one job, a traineeship. We approached a few law firms but without success as STEP so we decided to do a little different approach. We contacted a few banks, insurance companies and NGOs. During our workshop in Lisbon my team fi-
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