One of our goals at R Systems is to create the right environment for future innovators to thrive and, to help us achieve this, we went straight to the source and asked students at technical faculties to share their preferences with us. For the past year, we’ve been taking the pulse of the IT student community and found that the aspirations of young tech talent reveal a need for a fast-paced employment market.
Our Job & Internship Survey included students at tech faculties in some of the largest university centers across Romania, Poland, and Moldova.
One of the most notable findings is that the majority of students looking for a career in IT (92%) believe that the perfect employer should offer them career and personal development opportunities. Access to mentorship and the possibility of building a professional network is the main factor (84%) in choosing an internship, while financial compensation only comes in fourth place.
Our survey also found that, despite the common belief that tech students are recruited long before graduation, most students (72%) were not employed in IT. Meanwhile, just 6.7% of them were employed in IT, and 17.3% did not want to work while studying.
When it comes to their future career, students are expecting from their employer:
- Career and personal development opportunities (92%)
- Flexible schedule and a relaxing work environment (65.3%)
- Working with cutting edge technologies (53.3%)
- Salary and benefits (42.7%)
- The company’s alignment with their own personal values (38.3%)
Company benefits remain an important factor when choosing an employer and students were interested in:
- Career development and coaching (96%)
- Paid study holidays (46.7%)
- Team buildings and socializing (42.7%)
- Relaxation and time off policy (41.3%)
- Private medical insurance (28%)
The most appreciated career development opportunities among students include coaching and mentoring from top experts (84%), certified courses in top technologies (73.3%), and access to online courses (53.3%).
The most popular technology areas that students would like to explore in an internship include Java (70.7%), DevOps & Cloud (34.7%), and QA (33.3%).
We were glad to discover that the preferences students showed in this survey overlap almost completely with what R Systems already offers: mentorship from top coaches, learning programs in the cutting-edge technologies, as well as flexibility in choosing how to work. Apart from these, we are also bringing to the table personal development opportunities and an attractive compensation package.
To support student communities, R Systems focuses on long-term partnerships and collaborates with technical universities, such as: Politehnica University and the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science in Bucharest, the Faculty of Automatics, Computers, Electrical Engineering and Electronics (FACIEE) in Galati, the Faculty of Sciences in Craiova, and Bialystok University of Technology.
Every year, our Programming Academies offer an opportunity for newbie programmers to join us, and we’re always making sure to implement intern feedback from previous years to create a pleasant and motivating environment for all.