Internal retraining as a solution for many IT vacancies

New Cegeka spin-off Switchfully signs up CM as its first client.

Thursday, 5th July 2018 Posted 6 years ago in by Phil Alsop

Switchfully, a spin-off of the technology service provider Cegeka, is a new partner for companies that are having difficulty filling their IT vacancies. In close cooperation with its client, the start-up trains both internal and external candidates with little or no IT background to become directly employable IT staff. Switchfully thus offers an answer to the growing number of vacancies in the sector, and for those who want to take their career in a new direction in the short term, this creates new possibilities. The health insurance company Christelijke Mutualiteit (CM) is the start-up’s first client.

Mismatch

The job market is booming in Flanders: the VDAB (Flemish public employment service) registered a record number of 265,000 vacancies over the last 12 months - and yet it’s difficult to fill all these vacancies. Certainly the IT sector, which has experienced strong growth, has difficulty finding enough suitable staff. Around 27% of companies explicitly indicated that they had difficulty trying to fill ICT vacancies. The technology federation Agoria estimates the number of open vacancies for IT staff alone at almost 16,000, which they call a threat to the growth of the sector.

Sector with a future

Switchfully offers an answer to the challenges of a changing job market and increasing digitisation. The start-up offers retraining schemes as a partner for companies experiencing problems filling their IT vacancies.

Reinout Van Bets, Switchfully: ‘On the one hand, a war for talent is raging, not least in the IT sector. On the other, there is a lot of potential in our job market, without the right background. We want to eliminate this mismatch. Together with our client, we recruit talented people and then train them to be developers via our intensive training course that lasts several months. This allows people to take their career in a new direction in the short term, in a sector with a lot of prospects.’

CM is the first client

Switchfully’s first client is CM. For CM, Switchfully is organising a four-month developer training course known as the ‘Java Academy’. Sixteen candidates have now been selected for the project, all with little or no IT background. Three participants were already working at CM, while the other participants are new recruits who are going through the ‘Java Academy’ in order to work full-time at CM. The candidates have a wide variety of backgrounds: from linguists to technical profiles to lawyers.

Ann Soenen, ICT service delivery manager at CM: ‘Our organisation is not specifically known as an ICT employer, but we do need a large group of ICT staff. For us, the most important aspect is that our candidates are passionate about what they do. Prior knowledge is less important. With the ‘Java Academy’, we want to give people the chance to develop themselves.’

Niels Delestinne, Switchfully: ‘Switchfully creates modern software developers. We start with the fundamentals of writing code, but quickly move towards developing enterprise software. With support from trainer-developers from the field, not only do we teach them the theory, but we also directly focus on the best practice that makes a software developer into a real professional.’

Maarten Redant, one of the participants: ‘Until recently, I was an electrician, but I’d been interested in the IT sector for a while already and it offers a lot of prospects. This is why I chose this path.’