"Actually, I wanted to be a teacher," says Sven Brungs, but now he works as a consulting engineer for the technology company Cisco. The twenty-five-year-old had already completed his teacher training in mathematics and computer science, only his traineeship was missing to fulfill his original career aspirations. But he would have had to move, and he didn't want to. So he decided to continue his education at Cisco at CX Academy and leave the teaching profession behind.
Johanna Schwanitz
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The CX Academy is one of Cisco's offerings with which the company wants to attract IT specialists. According to the New Alliance for Securing Skilled Workers in Hesse, there is currently a shortage of 2900 IT experts in Hesse alone. By 2030, this number is expected to almost double. Cisco wants to do something about it.
The technology company, which employs more than 1000,83 people in Germany and 300,<> worldwide, sees itself as having a social responsibility to give as many people as possible access to digital skills, explains a company spokesman. That's why, among other things, there is the Future IT Talents program. This includes remunerated training such as the CX Academy. The Academy is aimed at university graduates and career changers who are interested in IT and want to start their careers.
At Cisco's free Networking Academy, IT beginners and professionals can earn fundamentals and certificates in e-learning courses. Together with the ReDI School of Digital Integration, Cisco helps refugees with the transfer of IT knowledge into the job market.
In the free incubator program, which is part of the Future IT Talents program, future specialists gain insights into the IT world during their studies or training and can make their first contacts.
In the course of advancing digitization, information technology will also be needed in non-classical technical professions in the long term, the Cisco spokesman continues. This makes it all the more important to do something about the shortage of skilled workers in IT. The investment in the training and further education of "Future IT Talents" is therefore firmly anchored in Cisco's corporate strategy.
"The training programs go into all areas, for example, we offer a dual course of study directly after graduation, various internships and working student activities during your studies," explains Anke Schütze, head of the Cisco Future IT Talents program.
Career changers also welcome
Last year, Cisco's dual degree program in applied computer science was launched, and Yana Satsevich is one of the first students. The 19-year-old Satsevich has always been interested in computer science, and the choice to study at Cisco was easy for her, she says.
The atmosphere is good, and she likes the opportunity to work from home very much. She only had to come to Eschborn in one day, where Cisco's training hub and the company's largest site in Germany is located.
However, IT professionals do not necessarily have an IT degree. In order to attract skilled workers, Cisco relies on various job advertisements, explains Schütze. "You used to have classic careers that only went in one direction. But we realized that it doesn't matter to have studied at a certain elite college or university."
One of the company's goals is therefore to hire 40 percent of employees with different educational backgrounds, including those who do not necessarily have a university degree. Degrees of various kinds and also career changers are welcome. "It's about being motivated, having a vision, being able to learn quickly and having an interest in IT," says Schütze. In addition, willingness to change is important.
Sven Brungs showed this willingness to change, after all, he originally did not necessarily want to work in the IT industry with his teacher training. Nevertheless, he was not completely foreign to the field. "IT has always been my second mainstay: If I don't become a teacher, then something in IT," he says of his plans. The training at the CX Academy made it easier for him to enter the industry.
The training, which was completed in Krakow before the corona pandemic and has now taken place online, includes knowledge of Cisco technologies, globally recognized certificates such as and a practical part of the training.
The advantage for the company: After the training program, the graduates can start working there without a long training period. But the graduates are also well prepared for a job in other IT companies, according to the company. In any case, Sven Brungs is happy not to have become a teacher: "That was definitely the right decision, which I have not regretted a single day."