Questions on Internships Abroad

Every year, we offer about 30 Explore Together internship positions, distributed over the areas of Business, Engineering and Research & Development. You can find the current vacancies in the BASF job portal.

Explore Together internships are offered in countries with a BASF subsidiary – except of Germany. At the German BASF sites, there is a great number of internships in various fields of expertise on offer. Just have look at the BASF Job Portal!

In the global BASF Job Portal you can search for all current internships vacancies at BASF sites worldwide. Alternatively, you can also send an unsolicited application to BASF subsidiaries where you would like to do an internship. Here is an overview of the subsidiaries and contacts.

It can also be helpful to do an internship at a BASF subsidiary in your own country before applying for an internship abroad. By getting in contact with many different BASF employees during such an internship could result in a chance for a subsequent internship abroad.

You can apply via the Job Portal on BASF’s career pages. Enter “Explore Together” into the Keyword Search. Then, select the Explore Together Posting that fits you best in terms of your expertise from the appearing postings and apply for it.

Explore Together candidates should meet the following requirements:

• advanced bachelor’s or master’s degree
• initial experience in the area you would like to do your internship in, e.g. from your course of study and/or previous internships
• initial experience abroad, e.g. from internships, semester abroad, or language courses
• excellent knowledge of English and ideally knowledge of the national language
• extracurricular activities

The selection process is carried out in several steps. First, we check your application documents (your motivation letter, your CV and your references). If your profile meets the criteria, there are two telephone interviews. A person from our Recruiting department conducts the first interview, and an expert from the regarding area of expertise does the other one. If you pass both of these interviews, we suggest you to the internship supervisor as a candidate for the internship position.

While working on a BASF site as an Explore Together intern you will be involved in technically demanding projects. That means that you will need to have already achieved a certain level of university education. This is the reason why it makes sense to apply towards the end of your studies for your Bachelor’s or during your Master’s.

It is not a prerequisite, even though we recommend it. You learn a lot about the company, its structure and its culture during a previous internship with BASF.

The internship duration ranges between three and six months.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to write your final thesis in the Explore Together program. A final thesis would require a higher level of supervision than the local BASF colleagues can offer.

There are many ways how we support you in the Explore Together program, starting with personal support with organizational issues. We also put you into contact with other Explore Together interns who will give you excellent practical tips. In addition, we pay for your visa and flight and you receive local internship salary. The salary amount depends on the specific country where you are working. Please note: In some countries, it is possible that the internship salary does not cover all your living costs.

Finally, we invite you to a seminar on intercultural topics where you also meet fellow Explore Together interns along with various persons who work for BASF. This helps you to reflect on your own intercultural experience and learn from one another.

After your internship, we will have a final talk with you where you can give us detailed feedback on different aspects of your internship. We use this feedback to further develop our Explore Together program.

And of course we want to further stay in touch with you - which is why we invite our Explore Together interns to BASF’s European Talent Pool. This offers you a wide range of options for staying in contact after your internship abroad. You will be invited to events, get a regular newsletter with news from BASF and have a direct line to the European Talent Pool team as your direct contact persons.

Please do not hesitate to contact us at jobs@basf.com if you have any further questions.