«Where professional virtuosos fight for medals»
Who is the best boat builder in Switzerland, the best farrier, the best chef? Over 1000 young professionals will be competing for titles and medals at the Swiss Skills Championships in Bern. Swiss Skills is being held for the third time.
Marco Odermatt on skis or Mujinga Kambundji on the athletics track fascinate us with their skills. And they motivate many to work on their own skills, to improve, to strive for a goal. Some have chosen their profession as the field in which they want to become masters of their trade. The Swiss Skills, the Swiss professional championships, are all about the fascination of professions. Just like in sport, the best of the best compete for titles and medals.
Swiss Skills is first and foremost a huge careers fair. Visitors can look over the shoulders of young professionals from over 150 apprenticeships as they work, find out more and be inspired. They can find out what a plant and apparatus engineer does, how a multimedia designer or a dairy technologist works. More than 2000 school classes from all over Switzerland register months before the event in Bern.
Swiss Skills
7-11 September 2022
BERNEXPO, Bern
Wednesday to Saturday: 9-17 h
Sunday: 10-17 hrs
www.swiss-skills2022.ch
From Swiss Skills to Euro Skills
Swiss championships are held in 85 professions. All finalists have proven in various preliminary competitions or final examinations that they are among the best young professionals in Switzerland.
The level of difficulty rises again at the national championships as part of Swiss Skills. Whether it's a craft, a social service or programming, all young professionals have to solve tricky tasks in a short space of time. Whoever delivers the best result - a jury monitors the participants' performance during the four-day competition - can call themselves Swiss champion at the end.
Find your own path in seven steps:
- Step 1: Get to know your own interests and strengths
How everyday habits and dreams can serve as a guide to self-assessment for young people. A questionnaire for career selectors. - Step 2: Get to know professions and training programmes
An overview of the most important educational programmes, professions of the future, where the shortage of apprentices and skilled workers is greatest and which career paths lead via a university. - Step 3: Compare your own strengths with the requirements of professions and training programmes
Comparing your own skills with the requirements of professions, how people with disabilities can find their way into the desired working environment and what role performance tests play. - Step 4: Get to know interesting professions in a taster apprenticeship
The career choice internship is the reality check: what forms of taster apprenticeships there are and what young people need to know about the taster programme. - Step 5: Review possible professions and training programmes and make a decision
To what extent starting a career is an important step in personal development, why the training company must be as good a fit as the profession - and how young professionals compete for titles. - Step 6: Look for an apprenticeship or register with a school
What is important when looking for an apprenticeship, how to make a good impression at an interview and ten tips for a convincing application portfolio. - Step 7: Prepare for the apprenticeship or school or clarify bridging programmes
Once you have decided what you want to do after compulsory schooling, it is important to find out more and prepare for it - otherwise there are a number of useful bridging programmes.
The competitions are as varied as the professions themselves. In some competitions, only a handful of young professionals take part, while in others up to 30 participants are entered. In certain trades, there are several elimination rounds leading up to the final. In others, the same people work over four days and collect points in the process. Visitors who are interested in a particular discipline would do well to study the detailed programme.
For some of the best professionals, the journey continues after Swiss Skills: Switzerland is sending participants in around 15 professions to Poland for Euro Skills 2023 and in around 40 professional categories to Lyon for World Skills 2024.
