BY ZENOVIY PAVLYUK | DIRECTOR OF HR MARKETING

SoftServe is looking for talents – our journey from Uzhgorod to Mariupol

7 min read
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After the quarantine in 2020, we realized that now where you live is not so important for work. Today, you can work from anywhere in Ukraine and even the world. This year, more than 900 remote specialists from Ukraine, Poland, and Bulgaria joined SoftServe. 400 of them are from the cities where SoftServe has not had a team yet.

At the end of 2021, SoftServe has already had more than 12,500 professionals worldwide, including more than 10,000 in Ukraine. With such a large team of people, especially most of them working remotely, it is difficult to maintain a corporate culture and build strong collective communication. Our department noticed the tendency, and remote specialists also increasingly referred to the need to meet live. We decided to kill two birds with one stone and organize an event bringing together current employees, attracting new people, and introducing them to the company. This is how we came up with an idea of ​​a series of live events in the format of a technological ROAD SHOW.

My name is Zenovii Pavlyuk. I am the director of HR Marketing at SoftServe. In this article, I want to tell you about one of the most significant events in 2021 organized by our team. I will explain why we go to new cities and how the ROAD SHOW helped us find new people all over Ukraine. And at the end, Ihor Burenko from Odesa and Nataliia Tsal from Ternopil, who also joined us after the ROAD SHOW, will share their experience.

Why SoftServe decided to search for talents in the regions?

The idea of the ROAD SHOW is the beginning of our interaction with the city and the local community. It expressed our willingness to give, not just take; inspire junior professionals and students through RnD demos and project stories, share plans to open coworking offices, as well as experience, technical speeches, show the mechanisms through which the company invests in local communities. For many people, we are essentially opening the door to a local career in a global company.

We started with 10 cities – Poltava, Zaporizhia, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytsky, Ternopil, Odesa, Lutsk, Uzhhorod, Zhytomyr, and Sumy. We previously had discussions with our development centers and analyzed the potential cities for further development. But at the end of the ROAD SHOW, we decided to add Mariupol to our list, because during our tour, it started to grow rapidly, people became interested in IT and even created their own IT cluster there.

Our first event took place in Poltava, and the whole team was very anxious because it was a new format for us. We didn't expect that there were corporate parties that day held by the three largest IT companies. But despite that, we gathered almost 130 people, and it was a great start.

Our mission was to make our voice heard in the regions and start developing long-term relationships with local professionals and build our communities there. After the ROAD SHOW, the number of our IT specialists in those regions has grown one and a half times. In the cities where we held our meetings, hires increased by 72%.

After several months, our teams in new locations have grown so much that we have opened office spaces in some of them. In today's world, we work in a hybrid format, so it is up to you to decide where it is more comfortable to work - from the comfort of your home or in the office. That’s why we opened SoftServe space in Odesa, Vinnytsia, and Khmelnytsky. And in January, we are planning to open such a space in Uzhhorod.

In conclusion, it was a great format that allowed the company to grow into the regions, to make us known in cities where we hadn't been heard before. And people were able to meet our specialists live, learn more about the company, and feel the atmosphere of the SoftServe community. We asked a few people who joined us after the ROAD SHOW to share their onboarding and working experience. You may also be interested in it, as we are already working on the ROAD SHOW 2.0. and other activities for new locations.

Ihor, frontend, Web UI developer from Odesa

Had an offer from another IT company, but after the ROAD SHOW, chose to join SoftServe

I started working in IT when I was 35. Before that, I was a TV presenter in Odessa and a music producer. Together with Alexei Mayorov, I wrote music for Gaitana for Eurovision in 2012. Then I decided that IT couldn’t exist without me and switched my career.

I came to the ROAD SHOW just to hang out, because just two days before I received an offer from another big IT company. It was interesting to visit the event of this scale because, during the quarantine period, they were prohibited.

At the ROAD SHOW, I met a few people, and we are still in touch with some of them. Recruiters also approached me, and although I said I already had an offer, we still agreed to have a call. After talking to them, I turned down another company's offer and joined SoftServe.

I liked that the main value here is people. The company I had an offer from is more bureaucratic and complex in this respect. At SoftServe, I really feel the values that bring people together. I always say that I have the best accountant, the best PM, and the best colleagues. Sometimes I interview people, and I understand that some candidates are not suitable for us because they do not have the necessary soft skills to sustain the consensus and atmosphere in the team.

The onboarding process was the smoothest and most convenient compared to other companies where I worked (including IT). There are many things written out for newcomers, and you never feel like you missed or didn’t understand something. We have everything in Workday (HR-process management system). There are all the tasks, reminders, and information you need at the start. On the first working day, all newcomers were gathered at Zoom for a short presentation. Then we, together with ERM specialists, signed all the documents with an electronic digital signature.

I am currently working on an American health insurance project. Our product must be accessible to people with disabilities. I like that you can write code and thus help other people. After the ROAD SHOW, the team in Odesa has grown significantly – at first, there were about 40 of us, and now there are more than a hundred. SoftServe recently opened an office space here, and now we can meet more often offline.

Nataliia Tsal, Technical Communicator from Ternopil

Came to SoftServe for professional development and new career opportunities.

I am an English philologist by education and have worked as a translator for most of my career. Then I started to work in the marketing department of one of the Ternopil IT companies. After working there for two years, I realized that I want more – opportunities to grow and develop, in particular.

From social networks, I learned that SoftServe is coming to Ternopil with the ROAD SHOW. I wondered if the company had career opportunities and prospects for a person with a philological background. For the event, they chose a great location in the fresh air on the “Chaika” island, in Shevchenko Park near the lake. I listened to several presentations about the company and decided to meet the recruiters.

We scheduled a call. The interview consisted of 5 stages, and at first, I was very scared. However, with each stage, I had more and more passion and desire to try my hand and show my best. I had a conversation with a recruiter, then with a manager, a language test (spoken and written), and a technical interview. All the stages were online, and it's very convenient because you know the specific time of each interview stage. Also, the interview takes place in the comfort of your home. In general, the experience is very positive.

On my first day, I signed the documents, and on the second day, I already received all the equipment and got access to corporate programs and services. Then there was onboarding on Workday. I learned a lot of information from Confluence and still visit it every day to find the information I need to learn, learn new tools, and get to know more about the company's services and capabilities. It's great that everything is gathered and arranged in one place, and you don't have to ask your colleagues.

I am happy that I changed my job because I really wanted to work for pleasure - not just to earn money (although this is also a very important aspect), but to feel interested in work, constantly learn something new. I was inspired by the fact that SoftServe not only provides growth opportunities but also encourages continuous development and improvement.

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