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in Romania also focuses on partnerships with student institutions and universities, e.g. with guest presentations at
events or workshops at the bank’s premises on topics like “Capital markets” or “How does a bank work?”.
Various cooperation programs with universities and student associations have been initiated in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Romania, Ukraine, Kosovo, and the Czech Republic. This gives rise to specific programs such as
internships lasting several months at Raiffeisen Bank in Kosovo, which attracted 150 participants in 2018, or
practical semesters lasting up to one year at Raiffeisen BANK d.d. Bosna i Hercegovina, which involved 27
students. Raiffeisenbank a.s. in the Czech Republic also offers a one-year program in which practical work
experience can be gathered; this most recently attracted 55 participants.
A number of trainee programs aimed at graduates have also been launched or expanded in recent years.
In 2018, Raiffeisen Bank S.A. in Romania signed up a total of 160 trainees for various programs, including retail,
management, and the brand new IT program “codeRaiffeisen Bank”. This is aimed at future IT developers and
was launched in November 2018 with 15 participants. Other network banks are also focusing specifically on
information science students and graduates. The aim is to make the bank attractive to digitally talented individuals.
AO Raiffeisenbank in Russia has established a dedicated team for employer branding projects
focusing solely on digital talents with the aim of increasing the number of IT employees at the
company by one-third. This team is responsible for the development and implementation of the
employer branding and communication strategy for the employer brand. With the support of
the recruitment department, it realizes PR projects, develops job portals and social networks, and organizes
events like conferences and hackathons that are aimed at IT developers, software engineers, data scientists,
quality assurance testers and others.
Another element of this broad-based strategy is the new “IT school” format. This includes the SAS School in
Omsk and the Java School in Moscow, which offer a unique format for the education and career development
of IT specialists in Russia. Young graduates receive full-time training for two to three months, including practical
work as part of a real product team of experienced developers. Training and presentations communicate
content on current topics like Agile, Scrum and Kanban that do not form part of a technical college or university
syllabus. In this way, the bank is specifically developing students with a view to meeting the requirements of
today’s employment market. The success of this model is underlined by the large number of applications. A
total of 500 candidates were interviewed, with 20 receiving a training contract and 17 subsequently entering
fulltime employment. In light of the positive feedback, there are plans to expand the program with the conclusion
of around 100 training contracts in the coming year.
For the past three years, AO Raiffeisenbank in Russia has also run the “Involve Internship Program”, which is
aimed at graduates in various disciplines and is similarly intended to make it easier for them to start their
careers. In 2018, the one-year trainee program had a total of 52 participants and is set to be expanded to
include a dedicated IT trainee program in the coming year.
Raiffeisen Bank International | Sustainability Report 2018