Building Bridges: Hiring Program with Cisco
One of the most important economic sectors for Germany is the IT industry. However, there is a shortage of skilled workers and many positions remain vacant. Cisco has recognized that more needs to be done to fulfill this demand. Working with ReDI School has helped Cisco find an alternate path to hiring: targeted training. Training hundreds of ReDI students from diverse backgrounds has led Cisco to offer over 50 internships and full time positions to ReDI School students. And mentoring has been key! Cisco’s entire leadership team has been available to mentor and support ReDI students through their entire internship. Today, 15 ReDI talents - 11 of them female - are working at Cisco in paid internships - with some already starting full-time positions.
Anke Schütze, Business Development Manager at Cisco, and manager of the program “Future-IT Talents” is the author of this blog post. She shares Cisco’s mission, experience and impact from the partnership with ReDI School. Here is the article:
The IT industry urgently needs qualified workers. Up to 90 percent of today's jobs in all sectors of the economy can no longer be filled without basic IT skills. Cisco Germany takes responsibility for providing access to digital skills, opening doors to new career paths and giving people tools to successfully master the changes in the world of work. In order to attract talent, companies need to get in touch with potential talent early on and in a variety of ways. Cisco has long recognized that these don't necessarily have to be graduates from the latest IT master's program. For this reason, we have been committed to promoting IT talent for many years, regardless of origin, formal education or gender.
Germany is severely affected by the shortage of skilled workers, with almost 140,000 IT positions currently unfilled. The active integration of women, migrants and career changers in the IT industry plays a particularly important role here. With targeted measures, we are building an innovative talent pool and bridging the gap to permanent employment opportunities in our company. Our four strategic initiatives for the working world of tomorrow include supporting newcomers to Germany. One way we do this is through our strategic partnership with the ReDI School of Digital Integration.
Targeted teaching of IT skills for refugees and women.
Cisco has been working with the non-profit tech school ReDI School of Digital Integration since 2016, both financially and through corporate volunteering, provision of teaching materials, and above all with a lot of heart and soul. Together, we have been able to teach digital skills to more than 6,800 refugees and migrants from over 95 nations at six locations and connect these tech talents with potential employers, primarily in the IT industry. Diverse educational opportunities create better chances of entering the German labor market, especially for people with basic IT skills.
To encourage and inspire more women to acquire technical skills and work in IT, ReDI School has developed the Digital Women Program. Here, immigrant women are helped to learn basic computer and programming skills - often trained by women who have already gone through the program themselves. Some of the female graduates started working with a computer in the ReDI class - and are now in leadership positions in the technology industry.
Placement of many young IT professionals in the industry.
Cisco has trained hundreds of students in more than 20 corporate courses at ReDI schools in Munich, Berlin, Hamburg and North Rhine-Westphalia, and directly supported them with Cisco Networking Academy online courses. The learning platform offers learning material for self-directed and teacher-led learning. The range of topics includes networking, cybersecurity IoT, programming, LINUX, and data science. Learners can earn digital badges and even prepare for industry certifications. More than 50 ReDI School students have found internships or permanent positions with Cisco and its partners in recent years - and counting.
Cisco's German Senior Leadership Team has also personally supported the ReDI School since October 2022. All members of Cisco Germany's Executive Leadership Team have made themselves available as mentors. In total, Cisco offers 15 ReDI students a six-month internship in various areas of the company. Most of the students came into contact with the company through the mentoring program. In February 2023, the first ReDI students have already started an internship position. 11 out of the 15 interns are women from the Digital Women Program. The program creates more employment opportunities and trains new IT talent. And it also helps Cisco as an employer transform and find future talent in a job market characterized by a skills gap.
The goal of Cisco and the ReDI School is to provide students with valuable digital skills, a growth mindset, strengthened career skills, and a strong network of technology professionals. The internship program is funded by Cisco's global executive leadership team to create new opportunities and bring to life Cisco's goal of "enabling an inclusive future for all."
This article was originally written by Anke Schuetze and published on Cisco’s website. It has been translated from German to English.
If you are interested in partnering with our Talent & Success Program, please email: partner@redi-school.org