Coding a Better Future – Codecoolers Win Silver at Morgan Stanley’s Hackathon

A team of Codecoolers developed an innovative learning support app, that might change the lives of children with a chronic desease.

Morgan Stanley and the Amigos for Children Foundation asked young developers to help non-profits building innovative learning tools for children and teenagers with chronic diseases, in the scope of a three-month virtual competition.

We’re super proud that the Codecooler team – Zsofia Szonja Kassai, Barnabas Urmossy, Balint Molnar and Kristof Murai – came 2nd place in the Hungarian competition, in an all-university team lineup.

We asked them about their experience at the hackaton and their studies at Codecool.

What motivated you to sign up for the Code to Give hackathon in the first place? Was this your first hackathon?

Zsofi: Yes, this was our first! We were curious about the challenge, we wanted to try ourselves and learn from a longer project. The idea that we might help a nonprofit was very attractive, too.

Barnabas: I wanted to know what it would be like to work together with a client on a project which is much longer than the usual 1-2 projects we are used to. Plus, I knew that we’re a really good team, and wanted to see us as a team develop, besides individual development.

Balint: For me, it was a no-brainer. I’ve never participated in anything similar, and I loved the concept that we can help kids learn languages, sponsored by a huge multinational company.

Kristof: I was also driven by curiosity in the first place. I had no idea what to expect. I wanted to see what we can do being in the 2nd part of our one-year full-stack development training. The idea that we can help kids in need was obviously a huge plus.

You named your team LazyLlamas. Where did this crazy name come from? 🙂

Barnabas: We realised that we shared an interest about llamas at our very first meeting. Then we just sat back like we had nothing else to do until we sign up. We added the “lazy” when we realised that we have just 15 minutes left until the deadline and we still haven’t registered the team in the competition, which was so us, actually.

But it felt good when people mentioned a few times, later, during the competition that based on the way we work we must have meant “lazy” as irony.

What kind of learning support tool have you developed? Can we see it?

Zsofi: Our app has 2 parts, one for students and one for teachers. The part for students is a learning enhancing tool with 6 types of tasks. The part for teacher, or the “Amigos” makes it easy to create tasks, monitor students’ progress and give feedback.

Barnabas: The basic idea was to create an app with templates that help creation of new tasks. And we also wanted to support the communication between the students and the Amigos, so that they can align on tasks and evaluation. On top of this, we wanted to create a gamified system for collecting points to enhance students’ motivation.

Balint: The biggest benefit of the app, just like Barna mentioned, are the templates. We created templates for memory game, word – image coupling, interpretation of written and spoken text, substitution and organisation into categories. We made all of them available on all the languages the Amigos work with.

Kristof: We’re very happy to demo the app to anyone who finds it interesting.

What was it like to participate? How did it feel to get in the finals?

Zsofi: For me it was an amazing experience! We spent the whole time sleeping much less, collecting creative ideas all the time, working together really smoothly as a team. Our original goal was to learn, but we’re so happy we got this far in our first hackaton. And it was super exciting to present our idea to the jury in the finals.

Barnabas: On top of what we have expected, the whole thing required a lot of organisation, project management, copywriting and presentation rehearsals. I really enjoyed being able to practise all this in a real-life development environment. And the experience helped me decide that I want to be a front-end developer after Codecool. Plus, getting into the final showed that we were capable of performing well in such a complex project, even before finishing course.

Balint: The competition was a blast and I was especially happy that I could refresh my web skills, plus learn CSS at the same time. I was really curious how we’ll perform among the university teams, but after the meetings of round2 it was obvious that we’d make it to the finals.

Kristof: I just loved everything about the competition. It was great to see what it takes to organise and put together an app from scratch. We started out super motivated and the ideas just kept coming to us. Then, after we successfully presented our ideas, our motivation got another  boost, and then we just had to fight time to actually deliver on our idea. Getting into the finals felt like a dream come true, and assured us that we did a good job.

What was the biggest challenge in the competition?

Zsofi: Racing with time. We had so many ideas, but it was almost impossible to deliver on them in such short time.

Barnabas: In the last days I found it really difficult to let go of some of our ideas and my maximalism, just like Zsofi. We had to decide what to implement in the prototype and what to put on the next steps slide in the final presentation.

Balint: For me it was CSS! 😀 And as the project kept growing, refactoring. It was really challenging to create and put each task type together, but the end result turned out very organised, thanks to Zsofi.

Kristof: For me, too, the biggest challenge was time, because we just kept getting newer ideas about how to make each task type even better and fancier. We had to draw the line somewhere eventually.

What skills could you use in the competition that you got at Codecool?

Zsofi: Like everything. 🙂

Barnabas: There were 1 or 2 technical solutions that were so specific that we haven’t seen anything similar during the course. But since we also learnt at Codecool how to find new solutions on the internet, we managed to find and apply those, too.

Balint: We had a huge advantage in the finals because we pracised so much already at the Friday demoes in front of clients at Codecool. As for hard skills, for me the hackaton was like “and add-on” to the web modul of the full-stack course. Our app turned out a Flask based, JavaScript-heavy website, with a complex database structure.

Kristof: I got all my coding and developing skills from Codecool, so I used what I learnt there. And when I got stuck, I could always turn to a Codecool mentor for help.

Where are you now in your Codecool studies? What are you learning about now?

Zsofi: We’re at the end of the OOP (Object-Oriented Programming) module, which is the 3rd or the 4 modules of the one-year full-stack development course. We signed up for the hackathon at the beginning of this module.

Barnabas: Yeah, the competition lasted the whole time of the module. Let me take the opportunity to send our thanks to our teammates who put extra effort into our shared Codecool projects, so we could focus on this challenge. 🙂

Balint: It was refreshing to work on something totally different while also coding in Java (but obviously the last weeks of OOP were also about web based stuff, databases and such). I’m actually just about to start my last module, I’ll specialise in Test Automation.

What are your plans for after Codecool?

Barnabas: I will start looking at web app front-end developer jobs with real confidence after this competition.

Balint: Precision planning is far from me, I have always been going with the flow. I’m curios about the Test Automation specialisation at the moment.

Kristof: I liked the web modul best so far and especially after this result I’m looking forward to become a web developer, too.

What will you do with with your prize? You’ve got some EMAG vouchers.

Zsofi: I haven’t decided yet. I want to make good use of it.

Balint: I killed my laptop a few months ago, so I got a new one from my prize.

Kristof: I have always wanted a smart watch, but I’ve never came around investing in it. Now I have.

What is the biggest learning for you from the competition? Is there anything your would do differently in retrospect? Would you ever enter a hackathon again?

Zsofi: The biggest learning for me, how much I actually learnt during the ride. I’m satisfied with our performance and would definitely go for another hackathon, too, sometime.

Barnabas: In the beginning I haven’t even realised how big of a task we took on. It even started to get a little scary after a while. But seeing that we can do all this, I started to come up with new ideas and challenges in the last days. I would definitely do something like this again.

Balint: i would do a lot of things differently, for example I would stick to naming conventions form the very beginning, and make SCRUM standups regular. But we all did our best, and I would definitely do this again.

Kristof: Since this was my first hackathon, I would do many things differently. But it was an amazing experience and I would definitely be up for the challenge again.

Inspired by this success story? Want to work with juniors like these amazing Codecoolers?

Our fresh graduates are waiting. Reach out and let’s discuss how we can help you.

We can’t wait to talk to you!

Motorola Solutions Launched Developer Academy Powered by Codecool

Motorola Solutions in Poland teamed up with Codecool to train 26 developers in the newly established Motorola Solutions Academy last year. The selected participants attend the 7-months long training programme for free. 

The Academy was founded by Motorola Solutions to tackle the IT talent gap hitting many IT companies across Poland.

Almost 500 people applied to Motorola Solutions Academy, a special training programme developed by Codecool Poland for Motorola Solutions. From the 500 the 26 best were selected in a thorough selection process. 

During the 7-month long education programme the participants learn solid back-end or front-end developer skills from scratch. Graduates are guaranteed to be employed at Motorola Solutions in Krakow.

How were the participants selected?

The recruitment and selection process, as well as the learning path of the programme was tailor-made for Motorola Solutions by Codecool, a leading programming school in CEE. Codecool provides full-stack developer and short-term IT specialists courses across Poland, Hungary and Romania. 

To find the most suitable candidates for Motorola Solutions, the school’s mentors and recruiters:

  1. filtered almost 500 applications,
  2. conducted 100 interviews and
  3. evaluated 80 beginner level coding task submissions.

What's next?

The free training programme started in December 2020. Students are spending 6 to 8 hours per day from Monday to Friday for 7 months to learn their brand new profession. 

The curriculum is structured around an alternating weekly schedule. One week participants have lectures and workshops at Motorola Solutions, as the pandemic situation and the current regulations allow. The other week they work individually or in teams on their own projects. 

Students not only learn the latest technologies, but also improve on their soft skills to ensure a smooth onboarding to the Motorola Solutions after their training.

The Motorola Solutions Academy vision

“Motorola Solutions is an ever growing company with a high demand of IT professionals. Multiple new employees join our Krakow office each month. We run different software projects from developing critical communications, command & control systems or intelligent public safety applications, to creating an image analysis software with artificial intelligence. 

As finding the right talent on the market is often time-consuming and challenging, we decided to walk a different path. 

With the support of Codecool we set up the Motorola Solutions Academy to train the exact talents we need. This cooperation gives us an opportunity to benefit from the proven, practice-oriented education method of Codecool, and combine it with the knowledge and values important for us.

We look forward to starting working together with these highly motivated students Codecool found for us”, commented Jacek Drabik, President of Motorola Solutions Polska.

We are proud to make Motorola Solutions Academy happen

“Working on Motorola Solutions Academy has been one of our most inspiring projects in Poland. 

We truly believe that the way Motorola Solutions chose to fight against the labor shortage is one of the most effective ones. While the recruitment process, the development and the implementation of the education programme was outsourced to Codecool, the integrated programme fully reflects Motorola Solution’s needs. 

At the end of the 7-month training 26 ready-to-work employees will join their team. They will know the technologies used by the company, the projects they are going to work on, and the company itself. Onboarding costs will have been saved as well“, said József Boda, CEO of Codecool.

Codecool Receives EUR 7,000,000 Investment Capital and Expands in the Region

Codecool, supported by its new partner Integral Venture Partners and its earlier investors Lead Ventures and PortfoLion Capital Partners has received an investment capital of EUR 7 million. This investment allows us to open new campuses in the region.

Codecool, supported by its new partner Integral Venture Partners and its earlier investors Lead Ventures and PortfoLion Capital Partners has received an investment capital of EUR 7 million. 

This investment allows us to open a new campus in the region in the first half of 2021 already.

The challenge created by the labour shortage in the IT sector will persist in the forthcoming years

44,000 IT professionals could be hired in the upcoming two years in Hungary only, if there were enough candidates with the right skills on the market, according to a survey commissioned by IVSZ, ITM and KIFÜ. In the EU, on the other hand, there were about 825,000 vacant positions in the infocommunications sector in 2020, based on data provided by the European Commission. More than half (58%) of the businesses in the sector claimed that it was challenging for them to find IT professionals with the right skills. Labour shortage in the tech industry may jeopardise the competitiveness of businesses, and therefore, overall economic development, as well.

A solution to this problem is to improve and support alternative IT training programs, besides traditional university courses. The opportunities created by demand for new forms of education have already been recognised by investors, too. Based on an analysis by Dealroom, the value of new capital investments in EdTech increased by 94% in 2020, reaching USD 13 billion.

Targets by 2025: more than 10 campuses, thousands of graduates a year and dozens of corporate training programs

We have completed our third successful investment round by its HUF 2.5 billion agreement concluded with Integral Venture Partners, with financial advisory support by Clairfield. With the EUR 12.5 million capital raised so far in total, Codecool matches up in investments with top European actors on the IT education market (Ironhack: EUR 22m, Le Wagon: EUR 16m). At present, we operate campuses located in Hungary, Romania and Poland, and over 1,000 of our graduates work in tech across Europe.

“The investment enables us to continue our European expansion. We’re planning to enter two new markets this year – we consider Austria, Serbia and Bulgaria. Our target is to operate more than ten Codecool campuses by 2025,” says CEO of Codecool József Boda. “Expansion, however, does not only mean increasing the number of our schools. Further development of our corporate re- and upskilling courses are also in our focus. Our experience shows that executives are increasingly open to train or reskill their existing employees, as it is often time-consuming and costly to find new experts with appropriate skills on the labour market.”

At the same time, we are also continuously extending the range of our open courses. In addition to our full-stack course with a job guarantee, specialised 3 to 4-month online IT courses were added to our portfolio last year. In line with the demands of the labour market, further training programs are under development. The target number of graduates in 2025 will increase to thousands per year.

“Codecool supports a fundamental, long-term macro and labour market trend – the promotion of digitalisation and the increasing significance of programming skills – through a unique and flexible business model. This model puts equal emphasis on the training of high quality coders, and the fast and effective satisfaction of corporate demand for human resources. These, together with the regional coverage and the expansion plans make this company especially attractive for Integral Group and its investors, as education is one of our key focus fields. The partners of our investment fund are from the region, and they invest in innovative, high quality CEE companies. Therefore, Codecool perfectly fits into our growing portfolio”, concluded Investment Executive of Integral Venture Partners, Ádám Szalai.

“Codecool’s 12-month, intensive, practice-oriented programming course is a unique proposition, there is no other course like this at competitors on the local market at the moment. The method is proven: 98% of the more than 1,000 Codecool graduates have already landed an IT job” highlights Ábel Galácz, CEO of Lead Ventures, operator of MOL and MFB invest (Hungarian Development Bank), founders of Enter Tomorrow venture capital fund. According to the investor, Codecool’s market outlooks are even brighter considering the fact that the Hungarian higher education cannot deliver the necessary number of IT professionals, even with an increased capacity.

“As the very first institutional investors of Codecool we have known the team for years now, and our trust in them has always been very strong. For us it was a no-brainer to participate in their 3rd investment round, too. They were able to react quickly and effectively during the pandemic, which is the essential characteristic of a successful scale-up. And they are a key player in EdTech (education technology), which is one of the hottest sectors today. Impacted by the recession, a lot of people feel the need, or are even actually forced in some unfortunate cases to start new careers and further develop their skills. So we believe to see further growth” – added Zsolt Mihály, Investment Manager of PortfoLion Capital Partners, a venture capital and private equity firm with investors like OTP Group and Eximbank.

International contribution to the development of digital skills

In the Autumn of 2020 Codecool, started the development of a new, EU level software development skills strategy and curriculum, as member of European Software Skills Alliance, together with leading large corporations like Amazon Web Services and Adecco. Via the Alliance the experience of the school in the field of training software developers will not only influence training of IT professionals in the region, but also on the entire continent.

Last year, the achievements of Codecool were also recognised by a top IT forum: the Amsterdam-based The Next Web listed Codecool among the 20 most exciting European companies on its Tech5 list featuring the most promising scale-ups.

”The Future will be More Digital. The Question is: Who is going to Design It?”

We were there at Masters of Digital online conference last week to discuss the status and future of tech education in Europe.

Masters of Digital 2021 virtual summit presented an amazing line-up of digital leaders, brains and ideas from all over Europe on 3-4 February last week. The organiser was DIGITALEUROPE, the leading trade association representing digitally transforming industries in Europe. The event was subtitled „digital as the driver for Europe’s recovery”, and focused on the bright future and equally exciting present of European tech.

Codecool’s CMO, Anna Ferenczy, was also invited to the main stage panel „Digitally Enlightened: New World, New Skills” on day one of the event. The digital experts on the panel discussed what the upskilling landscape in Europe looks like now and where we go from here.

Spoiler alert: digital upskilling not only has a huge growth potential, it is actually an essential enabler in closing the widening tech skills gap.

The four experts invited to the panel represented both business and government sides, educators and support bodies, early and adult education experts, international and local organisations:

  • Una Fitzpatrick, Director, Tech Ireland
  • Anna Ferenczy, Chief Marketing Officer, Codecool
  • Mette Lundberg, Director of Politics and Communications, IT-Branchen, Denmark
  • Norberto Mateos Carrascal, EMEA Territory Business Consumption Director, Intel

The discussion covered a wide array of topics including:

  • enablers to make tech careers more inclusive,
  • necessity of early digital education for all
  • recent generic changes in career prospects,
  • COVID 19’s impact on tech education trends,
  • remote work and education insights, and
  • digital innovation’s impact on the environmental crisis.

We collected some insights from the discussion that we found especially inspiring.

 

1. „We should not take European tech education for granted.”

As Norberto Mateos Carrascal of Intel highlighted, if we look outside Europe we soon realise how fortunate we are in Europe on a global scale to have tech and education systems in place, available to a large part of the population.

However, we must see that there are still huge differences between regions regarding access to these systems, and even if there is access, we sometimes cannot fully utilise it.

We must provide the infrastructure where it is missing, and educate the educators on how to use technology.

COVID 19 challenged us to move both public and private education online, for kids and for adults, too, from one day to another. We could soon see how much public education in general lags behind private institutions in the use of digital tools across Europe, due to many times outdated infrastructure, curriculum and skills. Private schools, on the other hand, like Codecool, are more flexible and were able to make the switch fast and without disruption.

Mette Lundberg highlighted that you can see clearly in kids in online classes today that they are more passive, less engaged, have lower energy and don’t participate much.

Panelists agreed that this is because the quality of online education must also be improved. We need to bring excitement to online education, significantly upgrade the online student experience.

Ways to achieve this include trying curriculum innovation, implementing AI, and hybrid learning options (like Codecool’s model of varying individual coaching sessions with larger webinars and small team work activities).

Anna Ferenczy added that cooperation between the government and private schools can also be a powerful enabler of more accessible digital education.

2. „Heavy tech users don’t necessarily have tech skills.”

Mette Lundberg pointed out a basic misunderstanding about tech skills, namely that even the new, digital generations are not as digital as we might think they would be. She highlighted that although most children become superusers of technology at an early age today, still they don’t know how to create technology, they lack basic tech skills. The Danish IT Industry Association started a digital education program in Danish elementary schools to change this, and it has already reached 15,000 children.

In a quick poll 25% of the panel’s (obviously rather tech oriented) audience also admitted to being addicted to their mobiles and having no tech skills whatsoever. Confirming the fact that probably most non-tech oriented, but tech user adults lack creative digital skills, too.

A member of the audience challenged the panelists whether it is really useful to teach tech skills when tech is changing so fast.

The experts agreed that in the education of the future workforce soft or meta skills, like computational thinking, creativity, and effective learning are much more important than actual programming skills. Anna Ferenczy highlighted that employers today value a solid combination of soft skills combined and tech skills, too.


3. „Diversity is not just a moral or ethical question. It’s also about profit.”

Una Fitzpatrick talked about a highly productive collaboration of a group of businesses with the government about the „Connecting Women in Technology” program, which aims at shifting the gender balance in digital employment, by attracting, promoting and encouraging women in STEM careers.

She explained that you have to make tech careers attractive to women to make an impact, and that this work starts at an early age in schools, and continues at the workplaces that need to offer a female friendly environment, use accessible language, and provide promotion opportunities for women.

Anna Ferenczy pointed out that diversity should not only be a key moral and ethical consideration, but also a financial and productivity based one. One recent research found that companies with women executives in their boards realised bigger share price gains, stronger revenue growth and higher profits.

Una Fitzpatrick added that there is a huge potential in and a need for providing access to tech education and jobs to the growing aging population of Europe, too.


4. „It’s not even about the future anymore. It’s about now.”

Anna Ferenczy mentioned that while we are all aware of a growing global IT skills gap, there are also more than 3/4 of a million jobs in Europe that companies cannot fill today.

We must realise that everyone should be prepared for constant learning during careers. We don’t have the luxury anymore to only study in the beginning of our lives, and then work from that knowledge in the next 40 years. Due to constant and accelerating innovation jobs are continuously changing, so people need to change their skills, too. This will only get faster in the close future, so everyone should start upgrading their learning skills.

 

The 45-minute panel discussion could only scratch the surface of some key ideas and concepts shaping the future and present of digital reskilling in Europe.

 

The organiser DIGITALEUROPE, together with BBC StoryWorks Commercial Productions also created a landmark film series, titled ‘Digitally Enlightened’, to help sharing great ideas and success stories across Europe. The series explores how a common vision would help digital innovation scale up and flourish to the benefit of consumers and companies.The series will also feature an episode about how Codecool is disrupting tech education in Europe to narrow down the digital skills gap and change people’s lives by helping them start their tech careers, at the same time.

Photos: DIGITALEUROPE

New to Recruiting Tech Talent Globally? 3 Ways a Local Partner can Help

Going global in hiring tech talent seems more and more not only a viable but also an inevitable option. Let's see what are the key challenges and how a local "friend" could make it easy to overcome them.

The pandemic challenged us to move work online last year fast, with the hope that we will soon return to normal. But then we slowly started to realise that “normal” is just one way we used to do things before and we may never really return to it. Partly because we will not be able to for a bit longer, and partly because it proved surprisingly productive and can also help us tackle the climate crisis.

Today, online work looks to stay with us and be very much part of our long term futures, too, part of a new normal.

The side effects on tech recruitment?

  • Digital industry going strong: Companies soon realised last year that they needed to speed up digitalisation to accommodate to a new, virtual way of work and living, and also to stay relevant. Investments in European tech grew last year, and together with government intervention to tackle the economic recession helped the industry to further expand.
  • The tech talent gap narrowing down: Several other industries suffered, and thousands lost their jobs or started to worry about job security. In some countries this led a trend in re-skilling to tech and the narrowing of the tech talent gap narrowed in some countries for the first time in a long time.
  • Recruitment going global: All those miles and kilometres between companies and work force seem much less relevant than before. Remember, tech is the field where 99% of workers can sit behind their laptops and do their work from anywhere in the world. Or at least from parts of the world in similar time zones. Our new, online way of life just opened us to a new, global tech talent market.

To fuel further digital growth and  find the best of the international tech talent, however, you must step out of your comfort zone and focus on 3 key challenges in this new, global playground. We believe that getting help from a great local partner might not just help with these challenges, but in the end make all the difference for you. Let’s see exactly how.

1. Don’t compromise: Find your true fit

"Though helpful, it is not about whether the person was from MIT, Harvard or Google.

The first thing to look out for is a fit. The values of the company and candidate must align.”

[Desmond Lim, CEO and Co-founder, Workstream / recruitment.com]

Once we presented a selection of junior tech developers fitting the requirements of one of our clients. They interviewed each and we were surprised to learn that they did not finally pick the person with the most relevant project experience. We asked our client why. It turned out that the student they picked was an enthusiastic table football player. Our client has football tables in their office and the game is a big deal for them, core part of their culture. They saw a group of similarly skilled engineers, and in the end, this small detail made all the difference for them.

Fit is obviously not just about hobbies. Often it is about values, drive, communication skills, feedback style, attitude to failure, openness to challenges, resilience to stress, a good vibe, and many other soft traits and skills.

But how do you find your true fit outside of your direct network, during some zoom interviews, from another country, probably with subtle cultural differences? This is the first challenge.

What works for our clients from around Europe is to let us use our local presence to hand-pick the best talents for them and offer them a short list of candidates matching their corporate style and culture. This works only because we make sure we get to know each other well in the beginning.

Also, we develop tech professionals that we ourselves would be happy to work with. We make sure to grow and nurture talents to become not only the best digital experts, but also great international team members, too.

2. Don’t lower the bar: Demand quality

“Recruiting tech talent is about finding the right mixture of technical skill and culture fit. Neither can be sacrificed for the other — you really need both.”

[Marc Boscher, Founder & CEO, Unito / recruitment.com]

Sure, fit is must have, but skills and experience are just necessary, too. You need the best competences in place for each specific role and task to get work done fast and in the top quality.

But how do you make sure there is real, practical and relevant craft behind the degree, the confidence and the industry terminology your candidate is flaunting at the interview, when you are out of your own networks, without your usual points of references? When a growing number of non-tech workers are looking to re-skill to tech fast, taking the easy way with short bootcamp courses?

And how will you find knowledgable experts in an international market with experience in your technology, which may be big in your country, but possibly less relevant in others?

First of all, a local “friend” with credentials and a proven track record can help you our here. Obviously no one will know better the quality of local tech resources than a really good local tech talent agency or training partner. You will want to look for one with a transparent, thorough selection process and a tried-and-tested training methodology.

To make sure your demand for specific technologies is also met, sometimes tailor-made trainings are the best and cheapest solution. When looking for a partner, make sure to check flexible curriculum options, too, adjusted to your needs specifically.

In the end, what really takes the pressure off is to have guarantees in place, like flexible trial periods and different sourcing and training options. Hiring is a huge commitment. Make sure you have a chance to try and test candidates first, and make big decisions only later.

3. Don’t lose momentum: Hire fast

“The number one gap I observe in the market between candidates and employers is hiring timeline!”

[Chris Menendez, Lead IT Recruiter, Hays PLC / recruitment.com]

Regardless of wherever you hire from, your deadline remains the same. Digital change is faster than ever and you need the right people to make it happen today – tomorrow is already late.

How do you manage to find and get the best candidate with the right fit and skillset fast enough in a vast global talent market without your well-known channels and processes? 

We suggest you look for a partner with a big and active network of quality tech talents readily available and flexible recruitment processes, offering you access to a top talent fast lane. The complete hiring process from our students and graduates normally takes 4 to 7 days for our clients, from briefing though short listing and interviews to sourcing agreement. Why waste time when there are resources available and work to be done?

These are just a few of the challenges that a local digital training and hiring agency can help you out with in global recruitment. Local laws, tax rules, international security regulations and bureaucracy are also so much easier to navigate with the help of a competent, experienced partner with end-to-end service offerings. With all these off your shoulders, global recruitment might not even push you out of your comfort zone in the end.

Codecool has offices and programming schools in Hungary, Poland and Romania currently, and is opening new offices in two further European countries this year. We’re serving 200+ clients all over Europe and our 1000+ graduates work at companies around the world. With our proven training methodology and flexible curriculum, hands-on selection process and pro recruiters we are ready to help you, too, as your local tech talent development and recruitment partner.

Follow us for more on Linkedin!

Whether you need IT specialists or you are looking for company trainings, you will find the solution with us.

 

Starting the New Year Stronger and More Mature than Ever Before

József Boda, Codecool co-founder and CEO tells us about why he thinks we should count 2020 as a „dog year”, how Codecool will shift to rocket gear in 2021, and what he wishes for all us for the new year.

2020 was a really good year for us at Codecool. I am actually admitting this with some reservedness in the middle of a global pandemic. When we were deeply shaken to witness the collapse of whole sectors, the shutting down of hundreds of companies around us. Thousands losing their jobs, all of us worrying about our loved ones’ and our own health. But we at Codecool have delivered all our key targets last year, and exceeded our own expectations by going online practically seamlessly, and growing our business at the same time.

If you asked me around this time last year, if we would be able to enroll our students fully online, take all our classes online, build partnerships online and place our alumni at those partners also online, I would have replied: „Are you kidding me? We surely would not be able to do that.”

And to do this all practically from one day to another? When our very essence is the Codecool vibe at the school where we spend long hours together everyday? And at the same time achieving a record number of yearly enrollments in the 3 countries with a 1.000 students joining us in total? Never ever. But then we did just that. Successfully. We were the most amazed that this was not all impossible.

After the first shock we quickly switched to agile mode. We wanted to help at once. We developed two apps for the National Ambulance Service in Hungary, and support guides about online education for public school teachers in Poland and Hungary. In the meantime, we have moved all our courses online without any considerable hiccup, and enrolled over 300 students to our government supported courses in the autumn. These courses are still going strong in all four specialisations, and we really hope that this forward-looking, popular programme will be continued in some way. In Poland, we have scaled up our weekend courses, and launched our first ever strategic corporate partnership programme with great success – a new service which we would like to roll out in all the other countries, too. In Romania, our first students have completed our first courses, we have forged new partnerships, and the first Codecoolers have started in their first IT jobs. Huge successes to all of us!

Let’s make something clear: these things have not just accidentally happened to us.

We must remember that all of us who have survived last year have been lucky. The only „mistake” that many others made was just being in the „wrong” industry, or they simply became the victims of circumstances.

On the other hand, the huge work done by our colleagues, mentors, students and obviously, our partners all contributed to our success. While, just like many other companies, we were running on non-stop crisis management. In Romania and Poland even without a „Summer break”. (In Hungary we had a chance to literally breath a little freely between the first and the second waves of the pandemic.) I personally felt like on an emotional roller coaster, daily fluctuating on the wide scale between desperation and „yess, com’on, we can do this!”. And I’m pretty sure I was not alone. But all this just made us stronger and brought us closer somehow. And I am so very grateful for this. Without the tireless work, infinite enthusiasm and full trust put in Codecool by everyone in 2020, we would not be anywhere near, where we are today.

Because today, we are actually starting the year stronger than ever before.

Stronger and more mature. Today it is not only the last year, but already five years behind us. (Though I used to say sometimes jokingly that we should count 2020 as a „dog year”, because it really felt like seven, but let’s just count it as one.) And these five years were spent learning not only by our more than a 1000 graduated students, but also ourselves. We have learnt to grow up to our goals, tasks, and the endless trust we have received. And so we have been getting ready for the new year in a much more structured manner this time, with much more detailed plans and in general, with much more control, than ever before.

And to say that our 2021 plans are ambitious would be an understatement.

We will open schools in two further countries next to Hungary, Poland and Romania – one planned for the first half of this year and one for the second. Having listened to our partners, we are widening our corporate services in each country, and enhancing our strategic partnerships. Building on last year’s learnings and international best practices we are lifting the online Codecool learning experience to a new level. And as soon as possible, hopefully by the summer, we are slowly, gradually returning to our favourite places, to the offline schools, too. Stabilisation and growth – these two words summarize our 2021 plans for me best.

However, if we have learnt something last year it is that anything unexpected can happen and overwrite our plans in a flash. We have also learnt, on the other hand, that we will probably be very much able to manage even such unexpected situations. We have learnt to trust ourselves better, than before.

We have learnt that we can carry out our business plans, and we can save our good spirit in our personal lives.

Just like when together with my wife, we managed to carry on performing in our jobs, even with our three kids at home in ad hoc arrangements controlled by changing elementary and middle school closure regulations. It was quite a ride some days, I must say, though surely not as much as for single parents. Or, when I had to help out my English teacher mother remotely, with no tech skills whatsoever about how to hold classes online. This is actually Codecool core competence, which I had the chance to practice in real life. But besides the challenges there were really pleasant things, too. I felt incredibly lucky to spend every night at home with my family, and I actually put more miles in my bike last year than ever before. (7.500 kilometres. Not a world record, but my personal best by far. 🙂 ) The reason was that I stopped travelling around our offices on a weekly basis, a big change after only sleeping at home max. four nights in a row last year.

In the meantime, we have also learnt that besides managing challenges, we can also keep our promises.

Because what do we promise every day again and again? A new profession to our students. A new career, hobby, self-realisation, even the chance for a better life. New talents to our corporate partners. Talents that are not only easy to work with, but also a pleasure to have in the company. Corporate trainings which can help them keep and get the best out of their own employees. And a workplace to our Codecool colleagues, where each and everyone is equally important, where we trust each other and where we feel like in a second family together.

And I wouldn’t promise anything more for this year, either – would rather just have a single wish if I can.

To see each other again, soon. After all the hardships, the excitement and all the plans, I miss this one thing only – our personal, offline gatherings. So this is my wish, not just for myself but for all of us – that we meet again, as soon as we can in our offices, our schools, at interviews, at meetings, at personal get-togethers. Until then, I just wish a little bit more strength and patience on top of this, and rewarding work. And a happy, successful and hopefully a little bit easier new year.

2020 in Retrospective – 3 Unexpected Success Stories

To end this difficult year on a high note let us we present you with the short recollection of three of our success stories.

With the new year approaching, we have started looking back and making account of everything we’ve been through in 2020. All the ups and downs, the unforeseen challenges and unexpected successes, big moments and big learnings.

We decided to give you a short recollection of what we at Codecool are really grateful for today.

There are actually too many things we could mention and too little space for listing all of them. First of all, our invaluable partnerships with our amazing clients surviving our arguably toughest year yet with us. Then the over 1000 new students trusting us with their dreams and ambitions starting in our school this year, and 160 graduates landing their first tech jobs at our partners and our companies. And also our continuously growing international team of 140 colleagues working hard to make everything happen.

We’ve been through together a lot this year.

There are just 3 success stories we would like to mention in more detail below, that make us proud and grateful around this holiday season. The first one is about how we got to help out those fighting the new pandemic in the front line. The second is about how we took part in changing the lives of those losing their jobs as the crisis rolled on. And the third one is how we got invited to shape digital education and vocation strategy in Europe in the coming years.

1. Sussess Stories: Assisting front-line heroes – saving lives with the national ambulance service

In the beginning of March, Hungarian National Ambulance Service (NAS) were suddenly faced with an unexpected technical challenge. With the global pandemic already full on, their colleagues fighting an increasing demand for urgent medical help and unprecedented health risk in the front line, it turned out they also missedsufficient technical support. Not being able to monitor the real-time stock levels of protective equipment on different locations, the ambulance staff on duty was not sure where they could find masks, gloves and other essential supply at their disposal, on their actual route. Also, supply management lacked the necessary status info to arrange timely stock-up everywhere. This slowed ambulance services down considerably, risking additional lives.

We jumped to help. Our developers created a new app for the ambulance colleagues to report and monitor protective equipment stocks in real-time, by location. We delivered a working prototype of the app in just 2 days and finalised it in another few days. By the end of March it was in use nationwide.

By this time our developers and students have already been working on another app for the ambulance service: tracking the work status of their 8000 employees in real-time, further improving the effectiveness of their front-line work.

We were glad we could help the work of our everyday heroes in our own ways. We are here to help in the future, too.

2. Helping the unemployed to future-proof careers – government supported tech courses

In the shadow of the health crisis, an economic crisis also emerged at the same time. Wide-scale layoffs started and thousands of people found themselves on the street everyday, from one day to another. As an emergency reply, financed from the European Social Fund, the Hungarian government lunched the Redesign Program on 11 May, 2020. In the scope of the Program, unemployed people got the opportunity to attend top quality digital courses free of charge, to build a future-proof, tech career for themselves.

Codecool has applied to take part and was finally selected as one of the partner schools in September. We enrolled over 300 pre-selected students in the following weeks and started their four-month training in October.

We are super proud to be part of this initiative about digitalising Central-European workforce, actually changing individual lives day-by-day.

3. Contributing to a digitalised EU work force – European Software Skills Alliance membership

The skill gap in Europe today is above 50%, meaning that over half of the European workforce needs reskilling to fill open positions. One of the areas with the biggest gap is software development.

To tackle the challenge on strategic level, DIGITALEUROPE and an alliance of 26 software partners launched the European Software Skills Alliance (ESSA), to design and implement the new Software Skills Strategy and vocational curriculum for Europe.

Codecool is proud to have been selected as one of the 26 partners in the Alliance. We will work on creating more flexible, shorter, more diverse educational paths benefitting both individuals growing their digital skills and businesses building their digital future.

Having recollected these stories we are looking forward to a hopefully less challenging, but equally rewarding new year.

We wish you happy holidays with lots of grateful moments looking back and celebrating your own success stories.

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Whether you need IT specialists or you are looking for company trainings, you will find the solution with us.

Telekom offers discount subscription for Codecool students

Codecool students in Hungary may use Telekom’s postpaid 15GB mobile Internet package together with the “Mobil XS“ tariff plan free of charge in the first two months and for a fee reduced by 30% for further 10 months. As a result of the cooperation between the programing school and the telecommunication service provider, more and more people can acquire marketable developing skills.

Telekom Hungary and Codecool Programming School have concluded a cooperation agreement. Under this agreement, all active or newly enrolled students of Codecool are now entitled to receive significant discount off the monthly fee of Telekom’s 15GB mobile internet package (offered together with Mobil XS tariff plan) for two years. The offer applies not only to the new 15GB mobile internet package, but also to the 10GB one contracted earlier, until the end of September. Telekom provides this construction for its clients participating in the trainings of Codecool in Hungary for a residential monthly fee reduced by 100% in the first two months and by 30% for further 10 months.

“Owing to the introduction of our short-term IT trainings, accessibility to our courses has improved significantly for the past few months, since our trainings have become available not only for people living in the capital or in Miskolc, but anywhere in the county or even outside of it. The agreement concluded with Telekom Hungary is also part of our endeavors to widen the accessibility of our courses. In addition to the benefits of the discount mobile internet package, we provide job guarantee and the possibility of post-financing for our full-stack programming course students, while the participants of our short-term trainings can pay their tuition fee in instalments, as well,” says Codecool co-founder and CEO József Boda.
The entitlement to the discount can be validated by presenting a document certifying participation in our course, issued by Codecool, in any Telekom shop. Within the framework of this special offer, one student may use only one discount package.

“Telekom Hungary is committed to the improvement of Hungarian digital economy and society. Digitalisation changes the usual routines and processes in every economic sector and in most fields of our everyday life; this change is inevitable, and, at the same time, it has become one of the most important competitive factors,” says Chief Commercial Officer of Telekom Hungary Melinda Szabó, referring to the agreement. “Our company has contributed to the major successes of the past few years not only through the intensive development of our network, but we also keep supporting digital education and the training of IT professionals through various programs and initiatives. Codecool’s digital IT training perfectly matches Magyar Telekom’s strategic programs, that is the reason why we support the students of Codecool by providing discount mobile internet service for them.”

Codecool expects that most of its students will take the opportunity to use this discount package, as having a reliable and fast internet connection is indispensable for the completion of the trainings. Mobile accessibility to the internet increases flexibility even more.