The WiT & CROC Soft Skills School 2021 2nd edition has successfully finished! The results are as stunning as the last year – 50 women from the IT industry took the course and developed soft skills to succeed in their careers.

This year participants mastered their skills on the following topics:
🔺 Self-confidence,
🔺 Leadership,
🔺 Effective communication,
🔺 Adaptability and change management.

For us personally great joy was seeing the inspired faces of the women who boosted their self-confidence, listening to their stories about what they dared to do after our lectures and masterclasses, and what wonderful results their experiments led to. We invested a lot of effort in organizing the course, and the outcome was totally worth it!

We hope that after the course girls will continue using the soft skills they have mastered in their daily life and this will lead to new interesting challenges, promotions at work, new contacts and networking, etc.
We also hope they will continue to develop projects that they created with their teams during the School, participate in masterminds, and communicate with each other. There were so many inspiring and professional women!

Now it’s time to show off the projects of our talented students! Perhaps, you will find inspiration in these projects and maybe would like to join some team – please, feel free to do so, we are always looking for volunteers!

1. Glass ceiling problem.
This team focused on helping women who want to grow, build a career, but at some point ran into obstacles.

2. Building a career abroad.
The project is dedicated to finding a job in IT in Europe, the USA, and Canada: both remote and with relocation.

3. Communication in conflicts.
Together we learn to build arguments and prove our point of view confidently, but not aggressively.

4. Building a personal brand.
The goal of this project is to help the community understand how to create a personal brand, the members created a roadmap with step-by-step instructions on how to build it. We plan to share these valuable materials on our social networks.

5. “21 days of personal brand development” challenge.
This team, just like the previous one, tackled the problem of personal brand, but their focus is on building a brand within the IT community. The team will be glad to invite new members on board: developers of telegram bots, experts, and mentors on various topics.

6. Onboarding mentoring.
This team summarised various experiences of integration and onboarding in a new company and created materials that will help successfully survive in this challenging time. They will be happy to welcome new team members, please, feel free to join.

We are extremely inspired by the creativity and productivity of our Soft Skills School students.
Girls, thank you so much for all your energy, you are awesome!

Stay tuned – there is always a chance to participate in any program as a participant, mentor, speaker, or volunteer.

This summer we successfully completed the first Mentor in Tech program in Russia. 110 top-notch mentors and 255 mentees were selected to participate in this initiative, making it one of the largest mentoring programs for women in technology in Russia. The program was organized in partnership with Women in Big Data and with the support of Intel and Women on Boards.

Participants of this 3-month program had the opportunity to receive free mentoring in five areas: Get into IT, Career and Leadership, Technology (Software Development, Data Science, Quality Assurance, etc.), Startups, and Digital Marketing. Apart from one-to-one individual sessions with a mentor, the program included networking opportunities, webinars from experts, and mastermind sessions in small groups.

Many mentees shared with us their success stories: some of them started a career in IT, found a new job that better fits their long-term goals, or learned how to boost their self-confidence. Remarkably, the feeling of being encouraged and supported was cited by the participants as one of the most valuable outcomes of the mentoring sessions. In addition, getting support from someone who has already followed the intended career path makes the bigger picture clearer for those who are at the beginning of their journey. Many mentors have agreed to support their mentees even after the completion of the program, so more success stories are yet to come.

We’re happy to announce that our mentorship program is expanding, stay tuned for more details!

Last summer Women in Tech Russia and CROC company organized this soft skills course for 50 women all over Russia and the CIS countries. This year we’re waiting for girls who are ready for a career boost again!

Soft skills are the superpowers that will help you find a great job, get promoted, lead your team, present your ideas, believe in yourself, and successfully communicate with people.

WIT & CROC Soft Skills School consists of 4 modules:
1) Self-confidence,
2) Leadership,
3) Effective communication,
4) Adaptability and change management.

Here is a sneak peek of what’s ahead:
💻 – new learnings
👩‍🏫 – personal coaching and masterminds
👩‍💼 – inspiring female professionals sharing their experience
💙 – self-esteem boost and community support
👩‍💻 – “graduation” project in collaboration with other participants
🔖 – personal certificate on course completion in Russian and English
💃🏻 – lots of networking!

Follow 3 easy steps to participate:
1. Fill out the registration form – https://softskills.croc.ru/ (deadline – July 22)
2. Wait for the results (the number of possible participants is limited – 50)
3. If you are one of the lucky applicants, join the course and study!

🗓 July 29 – August 26
📍Online
👩🏻‍💻 Registration until July 22 https://softskills.croc.ru/
✨ Participation is free

On July 28th, 2020 Women in Tech Russia hosted the second meetup of the “Demystifying Data Science” series in collaboration with Dell Technologies. The event’s target audience was DS newbies, so all topics were dedicated to junior data scientists and those who plan to enter this field.  

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• The first speaker, Nikita Cherkes, Team Lead Data Scientist at ID R&D, explained “What is Data Science and how to get in?”. Nikita told the audience all about his career path from Junior to Team Lead Data Scientist. He summarized his experience and explained what hidden catches wannabes and junior data scientists might face at the start. All of Nikita’s pieces of advice were supported by real cases and practice. He also shared many life-hacks and recommended useful services and links which will help to master the craft.
• The second lecturer was Polina Polunina, ex-head of the Data Science division of HR, Finance, and Video analytics at M.Video-Eldorado, a teacher at NIU HSE, the winner of the international Data Analysis championship. She gave a speech on “Data Science: What? Why? For whom?”. Polina helped the audience to get acquainted with DS basics, she managed to explain complex concepts and terms in a simple and understandable manner. From her all-encompassing lecture, we got to know what is DS, AI, ML, DL, what tasks can be solved using Machine Learning, and how “smart services” work.
• Dilyara Saetova, Administartive coordinator at WiT Russia moderated the event.

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During the Q&A session, the guests took a chance to ask our experts various questions, such as:

🔺 How to stop being a compulsive perfectionist and let the world see your project?

🔺 How to find a mentor?

🔺 What company is the best for a newbie – a small startup or a big corporation?

🔺 Is it important to have open projects on GitHub and demonstrate them in a job interview?

🔺 How much money does a data scientist make? (In Russia, it’s up to 5000 euros).

Stay tuned to get notification about the third meetup of the “Demystifying Data Science” series which will take place on August 18.

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#womenintechrus #womenintech #witrussia #wit_tech

After Women in Tech Russia’s “Ways to IT”  meetup in February, we collected feedback.  One girl said:

“It’s really cool that you do these motivational speeches and encourage girls, but I’d be happier if you had shown us how exactly we can acquire new knowledge, and how to start working in tech”.

We brainstormed how to address this gap, and came up with the idea of the 4-week course QA School. The program consisted of 4 lessons; each including 1 or 2 lectures. Our goal was to introduce women to test engineering, and help them gain enough knowledge to decide whether they want to pursue a career in e QA, and, if yes,  the roadmap.

Anastasia Zarechneva created a syllable for the course:

1. Introduction to test engineering:

• The role and tasks of a test engineer;
• Self-education and self-development as a test engineer.

2. Test design techniques:

• Test analysis and basic test design techniques;
• Combinatorial and high-level test design techniques.

3. Testing documentation and testing tools:

• Testing documentation;
• Testing tools: TMS, bug, and task trackers.

4. Applications, extensions, and tools to automate the test engineer’s routine.

Now we had a program, we needed space, lecturers, and students. For space, we partnered with a co-working place but, unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic had its own plans. Thus, we were not able to organize real-life classes, and decided to use the benefits of modern technologies, moving the course online. It seemed like a compromise, but in fact brought benefits, for example, we had an opportunity to invite more girls from other cities, not only Saint-Petersburg.

Finding lecturers was not a challenge – we already had a bunch of volunteers and mentors who desired to share their knowledge.

Our brilliant lecturers were:

1. Igor Gross, QA Lead at Test IT;
2. Kristina Kocherina, QA engineer at Yandex.Market (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lapkina-kocherina/);
3. Solveyga Azbite, QA engineer at Noveo;
4. Yulia Gorshkova, QA Lead at Softmachina (https://www.linkedin.com/in/yugoru/);
5. Angelina Makukha, Senior QA engineer at Noveo;
6. Oleg Asmalouski, Senior QA Automation at Test IT;
7. Marina Remneva, QA Lead at Wrike (https://www.linkedin.com/in/marina-remneva-b9171534/).

When the place, the lecturers, and the program were settled, we opened a call for students. The application form includes questions about background and motivation. As the school was free of charge, we needed to make sure every participant was dedicated and passionate about new subjects and would see the School through.

We received roughly 200 applications, so it was pretty tough to choose only 60 of them. We prioritized applicants who are not familiar with IT and STEM because one of our aims was to show that this domain is not scary, over-complicated or «not for girls». Also, we chose those with goals and expectations that corresponded with the School. For example,  we had to refuse the applicants who expected lots of coding tasks or test automation lectures, as this was not planned, and it would probably disappoint or decrease one’s interest in test engineering.

We gathered students in the group chat where they could network, get feedback from mentors, and share insights from the experience.

After 4 weeks of lectures, the students had a final task: explore a website, write a plan for testing it, test it according to the plan, report bugs, and make a quality overview. We reviewed their work, provided feedback to the students individually, held a graduation party, and distributed certificates.

The course was a success. Students were satisfied with the energy, positive attitude, and wide experience of our lecturers, as well as the well-structured program, and useful links to sources of information. As course administrators, we also identified a  key growth area:  practical tasks, which we plan to include more of, with the next series.

After the course was completed, we placed it online on the Stepik platform https://stepik.org/course/73926. Here it has over 2000 students and counting. We love seeing how our work continues to help people and watching positive reviews.

We would like to thank our wonderful team, lecturers, and partners, without which this wouldn’t be possible: Test It (http://testit.software/), Stepik (https://stepik.org/), and Prosto (https://www.xn--90azaccdibh.xn--p1ai/).

In conclusion, we would like to share the story of Victoria Moiseichik who found her first job as a test engineer after completing the course:

“I was scared to go into the QA field because I didn’t believe in myself and was intimidating by the high competition. The course became a practical guide into mastering tools and theory as well as a source of motivation and self-confidence. The motivation of the lecturers, their inspiring examples were a game-changer for me. I’m so happy that in one month after completing the course, I got a job offer as a test engineer! My team leads are satisfied with the work I do. I am grateful to the School that led to such great results. Thank you!”

What is the next step? We are preparing to launch the QA School 2nd edition. New and improved!  Stay tuned!

On July 15, at the Online Cafe “IT Career Here and Now” organized by Women in Tech Russia, we talked with great speakers about what is happening in the IT labor market now, what is needed to be relevant, and the role of Diversity in these times.

Moderator Lidia Timkovskaya from Women in Tech Russia and the founder of WOW Humans!  talked to Ekaterina Rozhdestvenskaya, HR Director of the technical direction at Veeam Software in Russia and the Czech Republic, Tatiana Tikhonova, HR Director of Deutsche Bank in Russia and Deutsche Bank Technology Center, and Liana Meliksetyan, Executive Director of Zyfra.

What we learned about the IT labor market here and now is:

1. The participants of the meeting are generally positive about the future – they see more opportunities unleashed by the remote opportunities due to pandemic. Russian IT Talents are valued both in Russia and worldwide.
2. Remote work is the new norm: In many companies and for many positions, remote working has become a new opportunity or even the norm. Therefore, the employee needs to find their own style of how to remain effective in the new format.
3. There is a shortage of qualified candidates, so a valuable candidate will always find a great job. It is important to improve your hard skills and your qualifications.  Join refresher courses, professional conferences, and events. 
4. An active attitude, continuous learning, and soft skills such as emotional intelligence, empathy, listening, collaboration, and the ability to articulate and bring up their unique added value as a candidate will distinguish the most valuable candidates.

This session opened up a series of interactive events that follow:

 “Anatomy of a tester” by Veeam Software,

 “Fair pay and data collection” by Zyfra

 “How to prepare for a technical interview” from the Deutsche Bank Technology Center

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On the 3rd of July, Women in Tech Russia organized a special event for WIT volunteers – the online #IamRemarkable workshop. It was delivered by Kate Mitusova, #IamRemarkable facilitator, ex-Googler, currently working at Wrike.

#IamRemarkable is a Google initiative empowering women and other underrepresented groups to celebrate their achievements in the workplace and beyond.

The initial goal of the program was to help females within Google to learn and practice self-promotion, but very soon the power of #IamRemarkable was scaled across the globe with the help of passionate facilitators. By creating #IamRemarkable, founder Anna Vainer https://iamremarkable.withgoogle.com/about-iamremarkable-by-google-anna-vainer, was trying to answer a very tricky question: “Why was it that so many gifted women found it hard to talk openly about their accomplishments?” And based on the extensive research it was discovered that women and other under-represented groups often struggle with self-promotion, and are conditioned from a young age not to speak openly about their achievements. Since the program was created in 2016 over 120 000 people in 120 countries participated in the workshop. We highly recommend reading success stories https://iamremarkable.withgoogle.com/success-stories to boost your inspiration and confidence.

During the workshop, Kate shared why she decided to become #IamRemarkable facilitator and how it changed her attitude to self-promotion.

“I was really bad at promoting my achievements and usually felt very uncomfortable. This is partly connected with my culture, I mean hearing from your school teachers and parents that talking about your achievements is bragging. Well, it’s a pretty strong message. Important to share that I’ve struggled with imposter syndrome and was always hearing a loud voice of my inner critic. This was very demotivating as I was questioning all of my achievements, I just couldn’t attribute them to myself.

But last year during the WebSummit I participated in the #IamRemarkable workshop by Google that has changed my attitude completely. I got so inspired by amazing people sharing their achievements and I was so proud of them. Genuinely proud! So I decided  –  it was high time to be proud of myself!  At the same time, the fear of being perceived incompetent or fraud was holding me back. I started with changing my perspective to self-promotion, practiced #IamRemarkable exercises, wrote down victories of the day, and worked with a mentor. Now I openly and proudly speak about my achievements and help other women achieve the same”.

It is very important to understand that difficulty and fear of speaking about self-promotion arise from multiple factors:

1. Beliefs and attitudes towards self-promotion and achievements in the family. Often it is perceived as something negative and compared with bragging. Achievements are devalued, taken for granted, and shouldn’t be discussed.
2. Unconscious biases – can be connected with gender, race, age, etc. There is research by Laurie Rudman conducted in 1998 that identified that successful women experience backlash effect – they are perceived negatively by men and women. 10 years later the research was conducted one more time and unfortunately identified that there weren’t any significant positive shifts in this bias. 
3. Company culture and lack of supportive community. Some companies don’t support healthy self-promotion and achievements appraisal or this process can be very formalized. In such cultures, women and underrepresented groups struggle the most,  sometimes give up and stop noticing their successes only focusing on failures.

During the workshop, we make ourselves aware of the biases and limiting beliefs and start training self-promotion muscle. With the power of support and several exercises participants make first, but firm steps on the road of being proud of their achievements and knowing when and how to deliver them.

82% of people who participated in the workshop state that they feel more confident and 72% say they practice more self-promotion.  Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77OtMTKQOcQ 

We highly recommend this article https://ideas.ted.com/how-to-blow-your-own-horn-without-embarassment-or-apology by Amanda Miller and “Step into the spotlight”https://podcasts.apple.com/ru/podcast/women-at-work/id1336174427?i=1000436076392 by Women at work podcast if you would like to learn more on how to openly speak about your achievements. 

Soft Skills are key qualities for professionals in the 21st century. They can help you find a great job, and boost your career. To encourage women to promote themselves, Women in Tech (WiT) Russia and IT company CROC launched the Soft Skills School.

“After we hosted WiT Russia’s QA School, we received a lot of feedback from women struggling with self-confidence in the workplace. We realized it was just as important for women to work on their soft-skills, as it is for them to learn hard skills”. 

– Elina Valeeva, Chapter Ambassador for Women in Tech Russia

WiT Russia is happy to partner with CROC in creating the School, as they have a proven track record of prioritizing equal opportunities. Last year, at #WebSummit in Lisbon, Polina Khabarova, Chief Transformation Officer and HR Director at CROC, spoke out about the Russian IT industry, drawing attention to the female employee experience and gender discrimination issues in Russia.

The Soft Skills School is in high demand. In just 10 days t, we received 521 applications from all over Russia, as well as from Russian speaking women in NYC, Berlin, and Bishkek, among others. The participants varied from 16 to 54 years old, from different industries, and with different experiences. We were inspired by all their stories, work, life paths, and motivations. The hardest part was choosing only 50, so we even added 10 extra places on the program.

About the course 

During this 4-week online course, the participants will receive feedback, meet peers, talk to mentors, do homework, and improve on four key areas. Each week outstanding speakers share their insights on a topic, and talk to their personal experience. WiT is focusing on taking real action, which is why after each talk, a coach continues the lesson with a master class and practical exercises.

Workshop Speakers

• Daria Pushkarskaya will explain how to set and achieve goals.
• Natalia Dyakonova and Lidia Timkovskaya will explore self-confidence.
• Maria Ukolova and Leysen Shayakhmetova will teach effective communication techniques.
• Marina Alekseeva will elaborate on the benefits of mentorship.
• Elina Valeeva will talk about how to network.

School Team

• Dilyara Saetova, WiT Russia
• Angelina Makuha, WiT Russia
• Elina Valeeva, WiT Russia
• Nadezhda Yanushkevich, CROC
• Anastasia Voronkova, CROC
• Tatyana Garkusha, CROC

Aside from these lessons, every Friday we’re organizing informal events on different topics. The first week was dedicated to masterminds, where we divided the audience into groups so they can network, share experience, and collaborate in achieving their goals. For the second casual Friday, we invited a C-level male executive to encourage girls not to be intimidated by bosses and management. We also resolved several cases on how to communicate about salary, vacations, promotions, and other challenging issues. The third Friday aims to increase self-confidence and bravery, which is why we’re hosting a fail-meetup. Several students and School organizers will share their epic fails and lessons learned. The last informal event is about chatting and reflecting on new skills and knowledge. We plan to close the course with a big graduation party and networking event.

The School is in progress and we look forward to seeing what impact it will bring!

On June 30th, 2020 Women in Tech Russia hosted the online meet-up “Demystifying Data Science – Vol.1” in partnership with Dell Technologies. This webinar opened a whole series of events that aim to prove that Data Science is not some kind of magic, but a craft that can be studied and mastered, and girls are welcomed.

Prominent data scientists from famous companies all over the world shared their knowledge and best practices with the WIT community. For the first meetup, we made the lectures as universal as possible so they would be interesting for both beginners and savvy specialists. 3 brilliant speakers showed the use of Machine learning from different perspectives:

🔺 Dr. Shaul Dar (Senior data scientist at Dell Technologies) started with “Introduction to Machine Learning”;
🔺 Lidia Khashina (Product Owner at Zyfra) was talking about “ML-based Manufacturing Process Management”;
🔺 Or Herman Saffar (Senior data scientist at Dell Technologies) captured the audience’s attention with the topic “ML-powered Crime Prediction”.

195 people signed up for the event and 182 participated! The atmosphere was very friendly and lively. The audience was actively involved in the conversation, asked many questions, and used the opportunity to get advice from Data Science gurus.

We will continue the “Demystifying Data Science” series, announcements about new events will be posted on our social media. Please, follow us and stay tuned! https://www.instagram.com/womenintechrus/