The Scout24 Group is reacting to this with its own online marketing trainee programme. Since the beginning of this year they have been training talented university graduates to online marketing specialists through a twelve month traineeship. Christoph Hölzlwimmer, Vice President of Marketing at Scout24 Holding GmbH stresses the forward looking character of the programme. "For one thing, this first class programme gives us as a company the possibility of offering ourselves to the branch as an attractive employer, and in addition also offers us the possibility of securing our permanent online competence. With this internal training I am convinced that, also in years to come, we will win excellent employees for the group who are distinguished by outstanding theoretical as well as operative specialist knowledge of the business model."

After almost twelve months this unique trainee programme is now close to its conclusion and the results are much better than expected. Already during the training phase the trainees advanced to become valuable employees within the group, so that now attractive positions in the various market places are waiting for them upon completion of the programme. This great success has prompted the persons in charge of the Scout24 Group to extend the training programme further. In January of the coming year therefore, eight, instead of the usual six, "high potentials" will begin their apprenticeship in the Munich group of companies.

The trainees profit from the sizeable expert knowledge of the group, which is passed on at both the theoretical and the practical level: In the form of a modular course of instruction the participants acquire well-founded knowledge in all online marketing channels and learn important management skills. In addition they pass through several of the group's market places, are integrated directly into operative projects there and through this gain important branch-specific expertise. The third stage of the programme is the project work, in which the future online marketing specialists have the chance to try out their own project for Scout24. "As part of a competition the trainees can put all the theory that they've learned into practice by means of a concrete website project. From brainstorming to the creation of the business model and the programming of the website, all the way to the online marketing measures, all the steps are in the hands of the individual teams," said Dr Filip Grizelj, Head of Online Marketing at the Scout24 Holding GmbH, describing the added value of the specially organised contest. The online marketing team of the Scout24 Holding GmbH acts as a mentor and arranges milestone meetings at regular intervals, at which the trainees not only present facts and figures about their project, but also have to apply for the necessary budget. Finally, the winner of the contest is chosen at a final presentation  in front of the management of the Scout24 Holding GmbH as well as the CEOs of the individual market places.

Scout24 is one of Europe's leading groups of companies for online market places. The seven marketplaces of the Scout24 Group, AutoScout24, ElectronicScout24, FinanceScout24, FriendScout24, ImmobilienScout24, JobScout24, TravelScout24 and the portal Jobs.de are present in 18 countries. As a strong partner, Scout supports its customers in important decisions, in particular in the fields of housing, mobility, employment, partnership and finance.

Every month, around eight million Internet users place their confidence in the offerings provided by the Scout24 Group, which is a part of the Deutsche Telekom Group. Further information is available under www.scout24.com.