Guest CEO blog: Cookie Crunchers… getting the right mix 😊 by Jeroen Fries, Managing Director, Talent-IT
In my previous blog, The Cookie Crunchers – Say What blog, I talked about the history and background of our hire-train-deploy concept, the famous Cookies Crunchers.
2022 and 2023 were extremely successful as we hired, trained, and deployed over 100 people in a wide range of technologies. Unfortunately, this year the economy in Belgium is quite a challenge, which means the Cookie Crunchers needed to adapt.
Shifting our proposition
As it is easy for clients to reach out and find junior profiles on the current market such as junior .NET, or JAVA developers or junior testers, we needed to (temporarily) shift to a more niche market.
So, the classes we deliver today are COBOL classes. Indeed, you didn´t misread it.
There are still major clients (blue chip companies) in Belgium who run their business on a mainframe and there are no schools to deliver new COBOL talent. So we do 😊.
0ther classes we are due to deliver this year are Microsoft Dynamics and Functional analyst classes. We need to stay creative.
Summer bar
Just before summer we organized our annual Cookie Crunchers summer bar event.
With last year still fresh on our minds, we had several goals. First, we aimed to express our gratitude to both our current Cookies - employees working at our clients after attending our classes - and our alumni Cookies - former employees who are now on the payroll of a client or working elsewhere.
Secondly, we wanted to maintain connections with juniors we met at job fairs and those who have recently been in our recruitment process.
Our event sought to bring together our current Cookies, acting as ambassadors, and to thank them, while also offering potential new employees a chance to experience our company culture firsthand. This allowed them to discuss opportunities with both our ambassadors and our recruitment and sales teams.
Bringing together our Cookies
Despite the challenges posed by poor weather and heavy traffic around Antwerp city, we successfully gathered a great mix of people, with a lot of new potential Cookies, ambassadors, and current staff. So, it was a great mix which resulted in a fantastic networking event.
What´s the ROI of such an event you might think? As the event took place just last week, it’s too early to accurately measure this year’s ROI. However, last year’s event resulted in new hirings.
For those who missed my previous blog:
The concept of hire-train-deploy is a very rewarding business.
We have a seat at the table with our customers because we solve their concrete long term staffing needs, but above all the gratitude of our candidates is fantastic.
We launch their IT career, and we realize their dreams. And how cool is it, recently I sat down with a client to discuss a new junior program, a client who started as a junior himself 9 years ago and now has a responsible function within a multinational. They haven't forgotten us!
In Belgium we are now the reference when it comes to hire-train-deploy projects.
If you want to know more, don't hesitate to contact us! https://www.cookiecrunchers.be/