2020-March-11

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Tackling Youth Unemployment in Spain

BY DAVID DE SAN BENITO · CSR CONSULTANT · SPAIN

It began with a question: What social problem could Cisco Spain solve?

We didn’t have to look far for an answer. Since the last global financial crisis, Spain has struggled with a severe youth unemployment problem.

In 2018, one in three young people aged 15 to 24 didn’t have a job.

We set our sights on tackling this challenge — the result was a new program called Becas Digitaliza. “Becas” means “scholarships” in Spanish. “Digitaliza” is the name of Cisco’s Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) program, which helps power Spain’s secure digital transformation.

Becas Digitaliza is designed to accelerate the careers of young students, helping them land IT jobs with Cisco, our customers, and partners. Leveraging Cisco Networking Academy, the program offers 1,200 technology-training scholarships to young people seeking jobs.

Since 2000, Cisco NetAcad has trained 200,000 students in Spain through more than 390 educational centers and 780 teachers. The “Digitaliza” goal is to increase the number of new students to 100,000 in the next two years — to reach 300,000 students by the end of 2021.

In just one year, we’ve launched two editions of the program, received 7,000 applications, and granted 800 Cisco scholarships. More than 20 Cisco partners have collaborated with us so far, and two-thirds have hired at least one student.

Boosting Academic Training

To fast-track the careers of young students, we reached out to instructors, partners, and others in the Cisco NetAcad ecosystem. After hundreds of interviews and months of research, we arrived at four key conclusions:

Talent shortages: Our partner ecosystem lacked digital talent in four areas: cybersecurity, networking, networking programmability and IoT.
Qualification gaps: There was a gap between our partners’ job requirements and student qualifications, both in hard and soft skills.
Lack of awareness: Many of our students didn’t know the value of a Cisco certification in seeking employment, or what Cisco could add in terms of employability and the IT ecosystem.
A need for reskilling: Many non-IT students looking to reskill in IT did not have the chance to benefit from the Cisco NetAcad.

To identify talent, we collaborate with Cisco Networking Academy instructors in schools who nominate students they believe can benefit from a Cisco scholarship.

Four Ways to Make an Impact

Becas Digitaliza takes a four-pronged approach to the challenges of youth unemployment.

Giving guidance. We guide young people in their job search, helping them identify the most in-demand IT careers
Closing the digital skills gap. We help close the gap in digital skills between academia and what’s really required by the IT industry.
Targeting opportunities. We give opportunities to people at risk of social exclusion, such as the unemployed or those in the process of reskilling.
Providing access. We help young people access tech jobs, connecting them with Cisco, our customers and partners.

A key difference with the Cisco Networking Academy is that Becas Digitaliza covers reskilling. It offers many non-IT students the opportunity to reskill themselves and start a new career in the IT industry with the support of our partner ecosystem.

According to DigitalES, the Spanish association for digitization Cisco is part of, one out of four IT companies are struggling to find qualified workers.

An Innovative Selection Process

With the help of a third-party company, we’ve developed an immersive app-like interface that combines neuroscience, AI, and game technology so participants forget they’re being assessed. This allows us to capture real authentic behaviors to the various challenges.

We can screen candidates against a validated target profile to make sure they have the attributes relevant to Cisco and our ecosystem. We’re also seeing a more diverse applicant pool, including more female participation.

Our selection process focuses on a person’s innate skills and talents as much as their educational background. For example, we’ve found that 40 percent of the students selected in our program have a non-IT background.

Changing Lives

Of the Spanish students who complete a Cisco NetAcad advanced course, 71 percent get a new job, a rise in their professional category, and improve their salary conditions. Basically, launch a new chapter of their lives.

Miguel, for instance, honed his cybersecurity skills while getting a networking degree in a vocational school. After Becas Digitaliza gave him five months of additional cyber training, he landed a job as a cybersecurity analyst with telecom giant BT, a Cisco partner.

Evangelina had a social sciences background but now forges ahead with her professional development in the IT industry, with a focus on programming skills in IoT projects.

Little wonder Becas Digitaliza has inspired similar programs elsewhere in Europe. Italy has launched a program offering 1,000 cyber scholarships. The Netherlands has introduced a cyber scholarships program for 50 students in collaboration with the Cisco partners ecosystem.

What’s Next?

This year, we’re launching our third edition of the program by June, offering scholarships to 400 students in Spain. We also expect to add 10 Cisco partners to the program plan to reinforce our alliances with public institutions. One example is enlisting the Ministry of Industry as an ambassador of the program in Spain.

We’re also working to launch spin-off programs to benefit groups such as NEETs (Young people Not in Employment, Education or Training), and people over 45 who are unemployed or working at small and medium-sized businesses.

Our mission is to raise awareness about the opportunities that digital skills offer for employment and employability, and build the digital talent pipeline for Cisco, our customers, and partners. Becas Digitaliza is helping fulfill this mission. It’s changing lives.