Conti finds that Romanian graduates are more motivated than German ones

Bucharest, Romania -- Romanian university graduates are self-motivated and optimistic about the future. Although strongly attached to their home country, they are basically willing to relocate, with a career preference for Western countries and, above all, the United States. On the other hand, they would flatly reject a job offer in neighboring East European countries like Russia or Ukraine, regardless of how attractive the position might be.

Equally unpopular are offers from China or Brazil. The students feel they've got a good education for the most part - even in international comparison - although they greatly regret not having received much practical experience. These are some of the key results from the representative "Continental Student Survey", presented by the international automotive supplier and tyre maker in Bucharest on Monday. The company, with plants in Timi?oara, Sibiu and Satu Mare, is one of the largest foreign investors in Romania.

"Well-educated graduates are a major asset and Eastern Europe has an enormous reservoir of talent. As one of the biggest international investors in Romania and a potential future employer for engineers, natural scientists or business graduates, we are keenly interested in the views young graduates hold with regard to important future issues touching on education, profession and career," notes Thomas Sattelberger, Board Member responsible for Human Resources at Continental., in explaining the commitment of the automotive supplier. 5,000 of Continental's 81,000 employees around the world are involved in research and development.

The Romanian students exhibit very definite preferences when it comes to their willingness to relocate for a later job assignment. 61 percent of the graduates queried would "very definitely" or "very likely" work in the US, versus only 17.8 percent replying with "rather unlikely" or "certainly not". 50.6 percent would "very definitely" or "very likely" accept employment in Germany, against 29.6 percent responding with "rather unlikely" or "certainly not". The students were quite adamant, on the other hand, in their rejection of a job in Russia and Ukraine (80.8 percent), China (78.9 percent) or Brazil (53.9 percent).