Career changers

A lateral or lateral entrant is a person who changes from an unfamiliar branch / branch to a new field of activity without having completed the "classic" vocational training / study that is otherwise common for this profession / branch.

background

Career changers often use their talents, skills and experience to convert their interest in certain tasks into employment. In some cases, hobbies are also turned into a profession. This step is triggered, on the one hand, by self-motivation or favored by changed framework conditions in current professional life (e.g. termination, new tasks in the company).

Lateral entrants are also specifically hired by companies, for example to obtain knowledge from outside the industry. Unrelated and exotic work and life experiences play an important role for the company. The career changer usually acquires the necessary knowledge and skills in on-the-job training and advanced training.

Self-employed people who realize themselves in a new area of ​​responsibility that are not directly related to their own qualifications / industry experience can also be referred to as lateral entrants.

legal framework

This article or paragraph presents the situation in Germany . Help us to describe the situation in other countries.

In Germany there are protected job titles that must be observed by lateral entrants and hiring companies / employers. This applies, for example, to the professions of doctor, dentist, psychological psychotherapist, child and adolescent psychotherapist, psychotherapist, veterinarian, pharmacist, lawyer, patent attorney, auditor, sworn accountant, tax consultant or tax agent, whose title abuse is expressly stated in Section 132a (1) No. 2 StGB named and therefore punishable, although this catalog is not exhaustive, d. H. other professional titles may also be protected, which the legislature has put in the individual case decision of the courts or upstream of the criminal prosecution authorities.

In general, companies can hire anyone with any skill set or experience. You may not violate existing law in the performance of activities and must use unambiguous titles in terms of external impact. See abuse of titles, job titles and badges .

In a broader sense, people can also be described as lateral entrants who have made an extreme change in industry. This eliminates the problem of protected job titles, as these remain untouched.

According to the Lower Saxony Civil Service Act (NBG), which came into force on April 1, 2009, lateral entrants in accordance with Section 14 NBG (access to careers) can be civil servants when entering the public service in Lower Saxony up to the age of 45 if they can prove their specialist knowledge and have professional experience.

No problems arise with unprotected job titles such as actor, journalist, politician, singer, producer, presenter, artist, etc.

State support

This article or paragraph presents the situation in Germany . Help us to describe the situation in other countries.

In Germany, the Federal Employment Agency promotes the taking up of an employment relationship or the start-up of a business out of unemployment for lateral entrants with a sustainable concept for securing a livelihood. In an apprenticeship or a profession in which a degree or other technical training is mandatory - such as butcher, confectioner, doctor or nurse - lateral entry is generally not possible. In Germany, for example, someone who has not completed an apprenticeship as a watchmaker or who has not passed the journeyman's examination may become self-employed as a career changer, but not use a job title on the company sign that makes his qualification appear higher than it is or that could cause confusion can lead.

Career opportunities

A study by the Bertelsmann Stiftung published in 2020 sees increasingly higher career opportunities for career changers. Due to the lack of skilled workers, companies are hiring such applicants more and more frequently. Partially qualified people are now just as much in demand as people who have completed their training.

Sectors

economy

A career changer is, for example, an engineer who is appointed to the board of a large German stock corporation for the human resources or controlling / finance department . Also lawyers who, for example, switch from the association to the private sector, or business graduates who switch from the automotive to the medical sector.

In countries like Australia and New Zealand, career changers can be found in almost all areas of the company. The local skills shortage in New Zealand is actively combated with lateral entrants.

Prominent examples in business are:

• Mathias Döpfner , CEO of Axel Springer AG , who studied German, theater and musicology.
• Sigrid Nikutta , CEO of the BVG , who studied psychology and education, among other things.

In a broader sense, career changers can be assigned to the principle of diversity management . Companies that follow this principle make constructive use of diversity in the employee structure in order to achieve corporate goals.

politics

Lateral entrants are people who switch to politics at a high level - and who have previously made a career in a profession unrelated to politics. Exclusion criteria are a so-called ox tour in a party and experience in political functions. Between 1949 and 2009 in Germany, only 250 of the 4088 positions to be allocated were filled with lateral entrants, a rate of six percent. For example, they are university professors or artists who are nominated by the respective party either because of their expertise or because of their image-promoting prominence or are elected to an exposed office without having completed the classic party career.

Examples in the USA are the election of Hollywood actor Clint Eastwood as mayor of Carmel in 1986 , of Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California in 2003 and of Donald Trump as president in 2016.

Germany

In Germany, the university lecturers Uta Ranke-Heinemann (non-party for the PDS ), Dagmar Schipanski ( CDU ) and Gesine Schwan ( SPD ), who each ran (unsuccessfully) for the office of Federal President , or the former manager of Werder should be mentioned Bremen Willi Lemke , who after his managerial career became interior senator for the SPD in Bremen. Often there is a switch from business to politics, such as the publisher Helmut Markwort , who became a member of the Bavarian State Parliament for the FDP in 2018, or the telecommunications manager Thomas Sattelberger , who also joined the 19th German Bundestag in 2017 for the FDP moved in, as well as the manager and former president of the Federation of German Industries , Hans-Olaf Henkel , who was elected to the European Parliament for the AfD in 2014.

Austria

In Austria there are numerous prominent political career changers who previously worked for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF), for example Helmut Zilk , Franz Kreuzer , Eugen Freund , Ursula Stenzel , Josef Broukal , Karin Resetarits , Monika Lindner , Theresia Zierler , Reinhard Jesionek , Gertrude Aubauer , Hans Kronberger , Jutta Wochesländer , Hans-Jörg Schimanek , Gaby Schwarz , Gerhard Seifried , Walter Sonnleitner , Ursula Pasterk , Peter L. Eppinger , Matthias Euler-Rolle , Christiane Teschl and Ingrid Turković-Wendl .

Prominent political career changers from the business world are Hans Peter Haselsteiner , Christian Kern , Richard Lugner and Frank Stronach , career changers from the field of sports include Kira Grünberg , Elmar Lichtenegger , Patrick Ortlieb and Liese Prokop .

Other prominent career changers are Mercedes Echerer , Maria Großbauer , Karl Habsburg-Lothringen , Sophie Karmasin , Karl Mahrer , Hans-Peter Martin , Franz Morak , Helene Partik-Pablé , Hans Pretterebner , Helga Rabl-Stadler , Peter Sichrovsky , Rudolf Taschner and Ulla Weigerstorfer .

The journalist Armin Wolf described some of them in his book Celebrity Politics - Portrait of Prominent Lateral Entrepreneurs as well as his dissertation and previously in the Austrian Political Yearbook 2004 .

Conversely, politicians have also worked as lateral entrants in other industries. After his political career, Franz Vranitzky was a career changer at Magna International , Johannes Hahn was, although a humanities scholar, even during his political career on the board of Novomatic , where Eva Glawischnig moved after her resignation as federal spokeswoman and club chairwoman of the Greens. State Secretary Brigitte Ederer moved to the Siemens Board of Management, and Vice Chancellor Susanne Riess became General Director of Bausparkasse Wüstenrot.

Education

However, if there is a particular shortage of skilled workers, lateral entrants or lateral entrants can also gain access to highly regulated professions such as the teaching profession ( teacher training ). See also lateral entry (teaching post)

In Austria, thousands of substitutions (Austrian: parental leave ) are being sought for missing teachers in 2019 .

In 2019, there was a lack of teachers in Swiss schools. Therefore many vicars teach (Swiss German: substitute teacher).

In Denmark , many untrained vicars (Danish: temporary workers) teach in schools, reports the Ministry of Education.

Sports

A career changer would also be someone to whom one entrusts the training management of a soccer team without previous soccer experience. A lateral entrant was, in a certain sense, Franz Beckenbauer as national coach (it was then called “ team boss ”), as he had not completed any formal training as a coach and therefore had to rely on trained, licensed coaches.

literature

• Marc Böhmann: The lateral entry-level book. This is how you start your teaching profession. Beltz Verlag, Weinheim / Basel 2011, ISBN 978-3-407-25563-1 .
• Sylvia Knecht: Success factor lateral entrants - undiscovered potential in personnel management. Verlag Springer Gabler, 2014, ISBN 978-3-658-02687-5 .
• Moritz Küpper : You can learn politics. Political side entrants in Germany. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle an der Saale 2013, ISBN 978-3-95462-062-3 .
• Robert Lorenz, Matthias Micus (Ed.): Side entry. Unconventional career as a politician in party democracy . VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-531-16483-0 .
• Armin Wolf : Prominent career changers as testimonials from politics. In: Österreichisches Jahrbuch für Politik 2004. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2005, ISBN 3-486-57822-7 , pp. 619–668.
• Armin Wolf, Euke Frank : Celebrity Politics - A portrait of celebrity career changers . Czernin-Verlag, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-7076-0068-8 .
• Armin Wolf: Image politics - prominent lateral entrants as testimonials of politics . Nomos-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2007, ISBN 978-3-8329-2874-2 .

Web links

• Sometimes you have to pack your bags - Tagesspiegel Online for lateral entrants

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Verena Töpper: Job opportunities without professional qualifications: Bertelsmann study shows the need for lateral entrants. In: Der Spiegel. July 31, 2020, accessed August 7, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Bertelsmann Stiftung (Ed.): Successful in the job through partial qualifications. Entry into the job, step by step to completion. July 20, 2020, doi : 10.11586 / 2020038 ( bertelsmann-stiftung.de [PDF; accessed on August 7, 2020]).
3. ↑ Quoted from Moritz Küpper : Definition of lateral entrants and lateral entrants ( Memento of the original from April 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . From: seiteneinsteiger.info , accessed on March 28, 2013. 
4. ↑ Quoted from Moritz Küpper: Daten ( Memento of the original from April 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . From: seiteneinsteiger.info , accessed on March 28, 2013. 
5. ↑ derStandard.at - Seitenwechsel: From ORF to politics . Article dated January 13, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
6. ↑ Tiroler Tageszeitung Online - EU election: ORF as a recruiting pool for politics ( memento of the original from January 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Article dated January 14, 2014, accessed January 14, 2014. 
7. ^ DerStandard.at - Armin Wolf: "SPÖ gets Eugen Freund as a voter attraction" . Article dated January 14, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
8. ^ Wiener Zeitung - The misunderstood career changer.Retrieved on February 12, 2014.
9. ↑ diepresse.com: Eva Glawischnig goes to Novomatic . Article dated March 2, 2018, accessed May 23, 2019.
10. ↑ From high politics to business: What comes after: The professional paths of former top politicians. . Article dated June 3, 2019, accessed June 6, 2019.
11. ↑ Staff shortages in schools: teachers wanted! - derStandard.de. Retrieved on July 23, 2020 (Austrian German). 
12. ↑ There are no teachers at schools in Zurich. Retrieved November 15, 2019 . 
13. ↑ Vicar står for mere end hver tiende undervisningstime i folkeskolen. Retrieved November 15, 2019 (dk). 
14. ↑ Österreichisches Jahrbuch für Politik 2004, pp. 619–668: Prominent lateral entrants as testimonials in politics ( Memento of the original from January 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved January 14, 2014.