At IMI, your employability is our primary objective. All our courses combine academic challenges with practical training, which is one of the reasons why our students are heavily recruited by the major hotel chains and industry employers. With their honed professional skills, enterprise and strong work ethic our students can look forward to a successful career in hospitality with extensive and diverse opportunities.
Every semester, IMI welcomes some of the most prestigious international hotel groups to our campus in Kastanienbaum. These industry leaders visit IMI to lecture, recruit and guide our students through all aspects of employment in the field of hospitality. Due to these excellent industry contacts, students are given the opportunity to connect on a personal level with future employers during our on-campus recruitment drives. Hyatt, Sandals, Mövenpick, Frenchman's Creek, Swissôtel, The Landmark London, Fairmont and Rocco Forte are just some of the companies who have recruited at IMI recently. Companies interested in participating in one of our Career Days should contact Ms Greta Musu, Head of Career Services on greta.musu@imi-luzern.com
IMI recognises that a successful career is the primary concern for most of our students. Equally important to our students, however, is quality of life and choosing a career that allows for their own personal development. There is no blanket approach at IMI. Our Career Services Department organises one-on-one meetings with all our students in their first weeks at IMI to ensure that each student make the right course and internship choices to complement their personal strengths and aspirations.
To drive this initiative, IMI employed Ms. Greta Musu as Head of Career Services. Ms. Musu brings with her an excellent international network of leading hospitality and leisure companies and has forged strong personal relationships with industry leaders. Ms. Musu worked for several years as a Principal Consultant for Portfolio, a leading international leisure and hospitality recruitment company in London. Having graduated from a Swiss hotel school herself, she is very familiar with the diversity of career goals our students have, and is adept at matching those goals and skills to the right employer.
Our Career Services Department offers excellent resources to assist you in your job search; interview advice, CV techniques, application strategy, on-campus recruitment, first-class job vacancy alerts, access to our alumni contact base and a wealth of industry contacts.
In our pursuit of excellence we have now opened these services to all alumni from IMI University Centre. Not only will we assist all BA, Postgraduate and MBA students to find their first role after graduation, our Careers Service will be there for you every step of the way from graduate trainee to General Manager. All free of charge.
These are some of the reasons that five years after graduation 74% of our students are in Senior Management positions.
For more information please contact our Head of Career Services on careers@imi-luzern.com
Our internship office will help you to find suitable and challenging positions, both in Switzerland and abroad, through our excellent network of contacts in the industry. You are entitled to take a paid practical training after every semester although only one is compulsory.
For internships in Switzerland, support is provided through the whole process of CV review, interview, employment contract and work permit. As soon as a potential employer confirms interest an interview is organised. Students are given information about the workplace and briefed for the interview. If successful, a contract of employment will be signed between the employer, the student and the school. By Swiss law, trainees in Switzerland must be paid a minimum monthly salary of CHF 2168.
For internships overseas, support is also given throughout, including CV review, links with reputable companies worldwide, interview advice and employment contract review. Our Head of Career Services also gives advice and assists with the paperwork required to facilitate work permit applications. It must be noted that the internship salaries abroad vary according to the local market.
During your internship in Switzerland an IMI staff member will visit you to ensure that you are happy with the progress of your training and to help with any problems you may have encountered. For overseas internships IMI will maintain regular contact with you and your employer to ensure that your experience lives up to your expectations. Unlike in most other hotel schools, at IMI, all these services are provided free of charge. You do not have to pay school fees during your internship.
For more information on internships in Switzerland please contact the Head of Internship Services on internships@imi-luzern.com
For more information on internships worldwide please contact the Head of Career Services on careers@imi-luzern.com
One of our main aims this year has been to develop our Alumni Network. Last year we launched our new Alumni Site and it has been an overwhelming success. As our 'Graduate Stories' show, our Alumni have been thriving and can be found in Senior Management and General Management positions around the globe. We hope that this Alumni resource, which provides job sharing and networking opportunities, will help our current students become the next generation of industry leaders.
If you require any further information or advice on alumni services, please send an e-mail to greta.musu@imi-luzern.com
Every semester we have around 130 students graduating and entering employment. The contacts they have made at IMI are not only friends and colleagues but will form the basis of their future network. To help our students realise the potential of these contacts we invited Mr. Henrik Mansson, the Vice President of Human Resources at Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts to talk about networking. At the end of the presentation students were more aware about the importance of networking and how to use the Alumni website to maximum effect. This information will help them achieve their career goals.
Our Industry Advisory Board is a collection of highly experienced and well connected individuals from within the field of Hospitality. They are drawn from a wide cross-section of industries and diverse nationalities. Its mission is to ensure that our courses reflect the needs and demands of future employers. As Hospitality is now the world's fastest growing industry, it is more important than ever for us to keep abreast of this rapid pace of change. Our emphasis on practical training, personal development and academic excellence has evolved through our workings with the IAB.
The Hotel Manager of the Landmark Hotel in London, Mr. Douglas Glen and his team, visited IMI for the second time to shortlist candidates for interview. He was very complimentary about IMI and the tradition of Swiss hotel schools:
"Our main recruitment drive is in Switzerland, since the Swiss hotel schools are still the only ones to consistently produce the kind of staff we need in our hotels. After thorough research we have selected only five hotel schools in Switzerland who meet our stringent criteria. I am glad to say that IMI is among them and we are very happy with the staff we have received so far through this collaboration."
“ Indeed it is a great pleasure to work with IMI to bring students to One & Only Reethi Rah as Interns. We had two students from IMI in 2010 and have just recruited another 3 from the 2011A intake. All of them are talented interns with a very high potential to learn and their commitment to perfection is a consistent strength we have noticed. This is the start of bringing interns from IMI and we look forward to welcoming many more.”
Hussain Afeef- Director Training and Quality Assurance, One&Only Reethi Rah
