I'm struggling finding a term for a job rank for a part-time working student to use it for my CV or in general in the whole interview process: In Germany we don't only have interns, but something called "Werkstudent", a part time student worker, which works in his field of study. This is what a lot of German university students do.
The idea of a "Werkstudent", which would be "factory student" translated literally, comes from the engineering field where students, while studying full time, regularly worked for 10-20h/week for a industrial company in their factory management to get to know their field, all the industrial and corporate processes and to earn money. But in the 21st century it is not limited to engineering fields anymore and any academic profession has its own "Werkstudenten" e.g. for business development, legal, HR etc…
The idea is close to being an intern, but it's not full time and in most cases for a very long period (until you finish your studies, for up to 3 years or so) and you get paid very well. Your tasks regularly are the same as the full time employees, you just have more time to do them and/or making a lot of errors is expected. (think of a step below a junior position)
So yeah, I'm really struggling with that. International companies based in Germany sometimes call it "apprentice" "working student", "student trainee", "industrial student" (!?) or just "intern", but I am really unsure of all of them since I want non-Germans to understand the term and I want neither to make my role bigger as it was, nor want I others to think I did labour work / a side job…
Maybe other English speaking countries have something similar I just haven't heard of?
Best Answer
A step below a junior position makes me think of an "undergraduate trainee" or a "student trainee" as mentioned by the O.P.
"a trainee manager", "a trainee teacher", "a trainee solicitor"
job resposibilities of a trainee engineer
To make sure it means someone who is still a student, the word "undergraduate" must be included.