Twelve jobseekers from Brussels and its periphery are being trained over a period of five months to become junior native cloud engineers, with the final objective of a permanent job at WESTPOLE
Brussels, 9 February 2022 – WESTPOLE Benelux, a leader in IT services and solutions as well as a specialist in the digital transformation of companies, has set up a free training programme, called LINK-IT Jr Native Cloud Engineer. It runs in collaboration with VDAB, Digitalcity.brussels, Actiris and INTEC Brussel. With immediate effect, this programme is looking for 12 active jobseekers from Brussels and its periphery. They will be trained as junior native cloud engineers from 19 April to 16 September 2022. Afterwards, they can immediately start working at the company where they gained practical experience in their training.
A win-win for everyone
The LINK-IT programme gives 12 candidates the opportunity to learn new skills over a five-month period. During this time, they will spend one or two days a week working as an intern at an IT company. So the candidates will quickly get to know the company culture and the projects they would be working on after recruitment.
At the end of the internship, all participants will be sufficiently certified (AWS, Google, Azure) for a job as a junior native cloud engineer. WESTPOLE’s ambition is to permanently employ 80% of the total number of participants.
On the lookout for talent
People with IT skills and experience are still scarce on the labour market, as confirmed by VDAB’s latest list of ‘bottleneck professions’. In 2022 too, there will still be a qualitative and quantitative shortage of ICT employees and developers.
Erik Govaerts, resource manager and project manager LINK-IT at WESTPOLE, can confirm this: “We are also seeing increased demand for cloud profiles from our customers. Staffing & Sourcing is an important activity within WESTPOLE. What this means is that we are looking for the right profiles for our customers, to whom they will ultimately be assigned. By itself, the current intake from colleges and universities cannot possibly meet this growing demand. In addition, with VDAB Brussel and Actiris, we want to jointly address the large and unused potential of jobseekers in Brussels. Through Digitalcity.brussels, we were able to link up with these partners to address the right jobseekers. So WESTPOLE is very enthusiastic about this initiative.”
Geert Pauwels, director of VDAB Brussel, also agrees: “The labour market is booming. Employers are finding it increasingly difficult to fill their vacancies with the right profile. Yet there are still jobseekers in the labour market pool, certainly in Brussels, who we can prepare for those vacancies through customized training. VDAB is happy to facilitate this process and it calls on INTEC Brussel as a partner to manage the training of jobseekers. We support WESTPOLE and the other companies in its network that are jointly investing in the training of jobseekers.”
The course itself will run from 19 April to 16 September 2022. This training is completely free for jobseekers, who retain their unemployment benefits and other advantages. The only condition is sufficient knowledge of Dutch (level 2.4) and a keen interest in IT. The involved partners cover the training costs. Registration via www.intecbrussel.be