10 years as an examiner at the Düsseldorf Chamber of Industry and Commerce - Ingo Schmitt receives the Silver Badge of Honor

Our CTO and managing director Ingo Schmitt not only takes care of the well-being and continued existence of the Marketing Factory, but has also been working as a trainer and examiner for IT professions at the IHK Düsseldorf for 10 years. For this he was awarded the silver badge of honor on April 12, 2018. Regarding this award, I did a little interview with him today to get some insights into his last 10 years.

The award was a new experience for me. I only know something like that from sport, where you are honored for your placement; usually you have worked hard for it in a competition. At the Chamber of Industry and Commerce you are honored for many years of voluntary work. I think it's good that the Chamber of Industry and Commerce recognizes volunteering and focuses on it. At the event, examiners who have been doing this for 15 or even 25 years were also honored. I really take my hat off to my colleagues.

Back to your question: It's actually like a birthday, nothing really changes. Except that I now also have to take care for the silver needle from the Chamber of Industry and Commerce...

We want to make our training as good as possible. This is the only way we can get good specialists to strengthen our team. However, good training is only possible if you really stand behind it and do more than “normal” textbook training. This extra starts with good supervision of the trainee and does not end in the company. Good training ends with a passed exam. Commitment to the examination board is a prerequisite for the good conduct of the examination, so I was happy to say “yes” when the IHK asked me. I also think it's important that you support what is important to you personally through your voluntary work.

I get an insight into topics that we don't deal with in-house – that's always exciting. It's fun working into it. In addition, the cohesion between the examiners is good and working with colleagues is great.

I have to admit that I didn't take any exams. The profession was so new that there were no qualified IT specialists and the IHK in Neuss (at that time the company was still in Meerbusch) asked companies that train IT specialists. Now I feel old...

I once supervised a project in which a trainee rebuilt the entire routing of a company with several locations across Europe. This is a technical challenge and it was great to see how proud the candidate was of accomplishing this task.

Yes, even three 🙂

1. The Düsseldorf Chamber of Industry and Commerce publishes the entire assessment criteria for the exam on its website. It says exactly how many points you get for which aspect. If you don't leave out any aspect of your documentation and presentation, you've pretty much passed the exam.
2. The topic or aspects of the final examination can be determined during the application process. Choose a topic that suits you or that you have fully understood. In this way you can maintain the technical depth in the documents and you can shine in the exam with your specialist knowledge.
3. If something is unclear or you need help, speak to your examiner. We're happy to help!