ECVET - Application to mobility projects

1. Selection of trainees: this process is necessary since there might be more applicants than available placements and it is desirable to give this opportunity to trainees who will gain the most from this experience. Each sending organisation will apply its own selection criteria; the final selection usually takes into account of the information provided in the letter of application and personal interview, the evaluation of the teaching team and the academic results. In general, it is considered that the trainee with the best academic results is not necessarily the best suited for the internship abroad; other personal characteristics such as open-mindedness or self-confidence are considered as important.

2. Matching process: the coordinators of the sending and host partners have to match the trainee profile with the potential placements provided by the companies. The host organisation plays an important role since it goes between the sending partner and the company in order to guarantee the matching is successful; if there is a poor match between the trainee's skills and expectations and the company's ones, there will be no satisfactory outcome of the internship. The procedure to match trainees and workplaces involves all parties:
- the coordinator of the sending partner provides all available information about the trainee to the host partner (training pathway, trainee's profile, CV)
- the host partner goes between the sending organisation and the company; it can eventually contact the trainee by Skype
- the company investigates and gives feedback to the sending partner about available workplaces or informs it about its own requirements.
Finally the chosen workplace is proposed to the trainee.

3. arranging the internship: it lays the basis for agreements between the training agency of origin and the host organisation, establishing:
a. training purposes and objectives. The coordinator of the sending organisation should take into account that the internship has an educational and guidance function (2-3 EQF level) as well as a job placement one (4-5 EQF level)
b. an educational itinerary with roles and actions to define: who does what, how and when. In order to make the learning effective, the itinerary must call for:
- the person who shadows the trainee (directly the tutor or other workers)
- the operational procedure (manual or intellectual operations) in which he/she will be followed from time to time to allow him/her to learn and become independent
- a description of the operations by scale of complexity and growth in learning.

4. training project: the path must be highly personalised to be suitable to the situation and baggage of competences that the trainee already possesses, his/her aptitudes and the company's requirements.
The coordinator/supervisor must bear in mind the student's point of departure and the point of arrival envisioned in the awareness that during the process, at times, it will be necessary to correct or change the course, according to the trainee's needs and characteristics. Being aware of who the future trainee is constitutes one of the most important aspects to take into consideration during the joint planning between the training agency and the host organisation. In the training project the coordinator should consider:
a. the technical - professional competences peculiar of the sector
b. the European citizen's basic competences (out of the technical-professional ones): language, computer
c. the cross competences as, for example, the ability to organize the work by collecting relevant information and data, to solve problems and take decisions, to deal with unforeseen situations with presence of mind, to work in a team and to complete assigned duties. Such typology of competences includes also keeping to workplace regulations (safety, data protection).
Planning the itinerary is also an important opportunity to approach the organisational culture and the educational methods of the partners in mobility projects. In particular the educational agency and the world of work interact by exchanging experiences and methods, enriching the training processes planned with various different stimuli and values.
Both the objectives and the map of the training itinerary are susceptible to modification on the basis of the trainee's rhythm of learning or unforeseen events due to particular company's requirements.