Assisting junior consultants into jobs through mentorship program

The big dilemma in the IT market is that there's a shortage of consultants and IT expertise, while most businesses limit the intake of junior consultants. With a mentoring program where seniors guide and include juniors on specific projects, Cegal aims to solve the problem.

NG Group has utilized the scheme with good results.

The big elephant in the IT industry room is possibly that while private companies and public organizations are in big need of technologists and IT professionals, most are skeptical about hiring or contracting consultants with little experience. Most prefer a senior consultant regardless of whether a junior consultant could do the job well enough.

Industry organizations point out that there are too few graduates in IT fields. For example, NHO organization Abelia writes, "The technology industry will lack 40,000 heads by 2030", while Khrono writes: "Six organizations join forces and demand better conditions for engineering and technology education."

However, there is little attention to this: How to get graduates and those with less experience into jobs. Here, Cegal tries to help; with a mentoring program where senior consultants bring along and guide junior consultants during training on specific projects. The mentoring program also includes candidates on job training from NAV at the customer they work for. The Cegal mentoring program has no extra costs for the customer. This makes it safer for businesses to hire fresh consultants and gives them the experience they need to independently contribute to projects. At the same time, Cegal assists in getting more people who are outside the job market into employment.

Good results at NG Group

NG Group (formerly Norsk Gjenvinning) is one of Cegal's customers who have used this program. It has given good results.

- The two consultants we've had have been extremely skilled. With them on the team, we've picked up speed in development. It has enabled us to reach the goals we've set, says Eirik Flaa, a project manager at NG Group.
He adds that he hasn't noticed that the consultant-mentees have been juniors.

The junior consultants have enabled us to reach the goals we've set.

Eirik Flaa, NG Group

- Over the past year, we've had a junior consultant and a candidate on job training from NAV through Cegal's mentoring program. Despite their little experience, they've done a brilliant job and truly contributed to adding value to their teams. The candidate for job training has now secured a permanent job in another company as a result of the experience gained with us,  says Christopher Michelsen at NG Group.

This is a great scheme, and for us, it's good to contribute to lifting newly graduated individuals into the workforce.

Christopher Michelsen, NG Group 

- We want to help where we can and give technologists an opportunity to use their expertise on the socially significant tasks we're working on, Michelsen continues.

Making data work together

Faisal Ahmed is one of the newly graduated Cegal consultants who has participated in the mentoring program at NG Group. He graduated from OsloMet with a master's degree in Applied Computer and Information Technology and has just completed two certifications in Microsoft Azure.

- I know about development, but with the mentoring program, I'm learning all the practical aspects that come with the consultant role, says Faisal Ahmed, elaborating:
- It's about how to communicate and work with the customer and how to contribute to building teams. How to write clean code so that it can easily be used and is easy for others to continue working on.

At NG Group, Ahmed works with Microsoft Azure Service and as an integration developer. He ensures that data from different systems understand each other and ensures data flow between different services and systems.

- The mentoring program helps me choose the right tools for solving various tasks, and I've learned more about the effects of different tools, Ahmed continues, working as a full-stack developer.

 Praising NG Group

If we are to get more graduates into work, we need companies like NG Group, which dare to try out inexperienced consultants..

We are very careful to ensure that the mentoring program does not burden the customers.

Some companies are afraid that mentoring programs will cost too much time from the project or the senior consultants already hired, but we are very careful to ensure that the mentoring program does not burden the customers. Cegal ensures this in two ways. One is by having all mentees on a trial period at the customers. The other is by using a separate Cegal time code for the senior consultants' mentoring work so that the work that does not directly benefit the customers is not charged to them.

Cegal also makes a thorough selection of consultants for the mentoring program. To participate in the scheme, juniors must be independent and proactive. They must also take responsibility for acquiring the knowledge they need to be effective at the customer.