764 new specialists on board and 1 714 recommendations. Despite the pandemic, Sii Poland hasn’t slowed down
The first half of 2020 proved to be challenging. Due to uncertainty about the impact of the pandemic on business many companies had to change their plans, and also the recruitment strategy. How did Sii Poland cope with this situation?
From January to the end of June, 764 specialists, including mainly Java, .NET, C/C++ Developers and Testers joined the Sii team. This means that the company continues to grow dynamically, and the number of employees has reached almost 5 000 experts in 14 branches in Poland.
The recruitment department also received 1 714 recommendations from the “Recommend a Friend to Sii” program. The stable number of recommendations is very satisfying – around 35% of new employees come from the program, which generates the largest part of hires in the company.
– Thanks to the available tools, 95% of Sii workers switched to remote work overnight. Of course, this was also the case for the recruitment teams. We quickly had to get used to new realities and challenges. The entire recruitment process, from the first recruitment interview to technical checks, was performed online. It was possible to deliver contracts or equipment by courier. New duties were assigned online. The first day of work was also remote. Although we are now slowly returning to work in the office, it is up to the candidate whether he or she wants to meet the recruiter in person or arrange a phone or online conversation – says Wojciech Dreja, Recruitment Director at Sii Poland.
We are still looking for developers, DevOps engineers, analysts, project managers and technical support specialists to join the Sii team. Our projects are carried out for Polish and international companies operating in different sectors, from medical through financial, banking and e-commerce to automotive. All current job offers can be found in the career section on the Sii website.
Online meetups
Due to a willingness to still exchange knowledge, the formula of numerous technological meetups, which usually took place in all Sii locations in Poland, also had to be changed. In the first half of this year, there were 9 webinars attended by 1 750 people. The meetings were also aimed at those outside the organization. They were focused on various technologies – there was a little something for both software testers and .Net, C++ or Java developers. There were also niche topics for Salesforce and Business Intelligence specialists as well as Adobe Experience Managers.
– As a result of the pandemic, we moved our on-site meetups online. I often make speeches at all sorts of events, but this year was the first time I hosted a webinar. It was a big challenge, especially because of limited interaction with the participants, which does not happen during a traditional meeting where you can see how the audience reacts. However, the interest exceeded our expectations and the lively chat discussion was very encouraging. I would love to do it again – says Mateusz Tadla, Test Development Engineer and speaker at the ” Automation of UI tests for web applications” webinar which took place in March.
– I’m glad I had a chance to co-host it with Mateusz. Thanks to the meeting formula we were able to gather a much larger number of participants than at a traditional meetup. Nearly 500 people joined the event. I like to share knowledge so I hope that I will have the opportunity to participate in a webinar as a speaker many times in the future – adds Michał Ślęzak, Test Development Engineer and co-host of the webinar.
Information about all events organized by Sii Poland is available to the members of a dedicated Facebook group.
