Moritz Plathe

What career path did you take to get to your current position at ZEIT Verlag?

During my Bachelor's degree, I got involved in the departmental student organization (Fachschaft) and then in the General Student Committee (AStA). Besides the parties we organized, we represented the interests of the students in the various university committees. During this time, I was able to learn a lot about the organization of such a large institution and found it really fascinating to see how different interests can be aligned to make the university a little more future-proof for everyone. Communication was already the most important aspect back then! After my studies, I basically changed sides and worked in the President's Office of Saarland University, mainly in connection with quality management and accreditation. I was part of a collaborative project involving ten universities that advised each other on this topic. This gave me the opportunity to get to know many other universities as well. To gain wider insights into the world of higher education, I then took up a position with a private higher education institution in Berlin and worked in the area of university development. It was very different to the state universities, but here, too, there was a lot of internal communication.
After a while, I wanted a change of perspective and went to work for ZEIT Verlag in Hamburg. Of course, I kept my focus on higher education and research, but now concentrate much more on their external communication and university marketing. This brought me full circle from my Master's thesis at Saarland University on employer marketing for Generation Z.

What do you value most about your current position and how did your studies prepare you for it?

The DIE ZEIT brand naturally has a certain attraction. That wasn't the case with my university jobs, but that doesn't make it any easier to describe my roles. If you say you work at a university, everyone thinks you're an academic, and if you say you work for ZEIT Verlag, everyone thinks you're a journalist. Both worlds have so much more to offer, which is what makes the 'core product' possible in the first place, i.e. working in academic management or working in publishing. What I particularly value about my current job is the variety of topics. As a consultant, you gain very wide insights into a large number of universities. Each university has individual communication goals that you need to grasp quickly and through this wide scope you learn a lot of new things incredibly quickly. For my current job, my study programme provided essential knowledge and skills that have given me a commercial and process-oriented approach to many of my tasks. Academic writing (as banal as it sounds) may have also trained me to grasp information quickly and restructure it. One very specific thing: I still regularly give lectures and workshops on Generation Z. This was the subject of my Master's thesis and in numerous lectures with Professor Scholz.
The experience I gained during my time as a student representative also shouldn't be underestimated. Networking, conversation skills and a certain feel for politics are useful in most jobs where you want to get people on board with whatever it is you are trying to achieve.

What would you have liked to have known before starting your career?

That not everyone is as passionate about their work and that you always have to weigh up how much enthusiasm you can show for your own topics without achieving the opposite.

Do you still have frequent contact with your alma mater?

I am still in touch with a number of my fellow students and colleagues from my time as a member of staff at Saarland University! Some of them are still at Saarland University, so I'm always well informed about new developments. And when I'm in Saarbrücken, I always like to drop by the campus!