MAI Digital Personnel Platform representatives told how students learn to design their future
Aviation, aerospace, air mobility are industries that are developing at incredible speed, and as a result, they require an increasing number of highly professional, talented experts. The specialized universities of our country are striving to satisfy the shortage of personnel in these and other industries by graduating young engineers who are ready to create the future now. But MAI went even further and created the Digital Personnel Platform, which makes it possible for students to fulfil themselves in the profession... How? We talked about it with those who are directly related to the Platform – Lyubov Fedotova, project manager of the Digital Personnel Platform Directorate, Dmitry Kaysin, Director of the MAI Digital Personnel Platform Directorate, and Olga Khomutskaya, Director of the MAI Center for Individualization of Education.
– What is the Digital Personnel Platform?
Lyubov: From the point of view of the concept, the Digital Personnel Platform is a digital ecosystem based on the interaction among students and enterprises and the educational environment. The main goal of this interaction is the formation of individual educational trajectories of students for the purpose of subsequent employment and, on the other hand, meeting the needs of high-tech enterprises.
It all starts with HR forecast: this is a fundamental block of work with enterprises to determine their current and strategic need for personnel. The formation of such a forecast gives further understanding of what requirements should be in the training programs, what competencies will be in demand, what kind of experts the market will need in a few years.
The core of the recruitment platform is a recruitment agency. This is where the student and the enterprise meet. A recruitment agency helps a student find a job, an internship, and conducts career guidance events and consultations, helps the student build a career based on his/her abilities and dreams. Also, the recruitment agency interacts with enterprises, helping to meet the operational and strategic needs for personnel.
Another important block of the Digital Platform is the constructor of individual educational trajectories. This is a system that helps the student to pump certain key skills that he needs so that he can get exactly where he wants.
For example, a student sees a vacancy, he has basic experience, but he lacks key competencies. And through the constructor of individual trajectories, he can complete these competencies, transform himself in order to take the desired position.
And if we go from the conceptual to the material part, then the Digital Personnel Platform is an information system where the student has a personal account, where he can choose a job, practice, internship, an event of interest to him (conferences, courses, hackathons, etc.).
How do you cooperate with companies?
Lyubov: We offer a number of services to companies: assistance in filling vacancies, building a company's HR brand, organizing internships that are interesting for students, and additional educational programs. And this is very important, because students are very different now, and enterprises might not always consider their requests and aspirations. It all starts with a personnel forecast, then a recruitment agency is involved, which works closely with employers and students.
– Is the recruitment agency organized as part of Moscow Aviation Institute?
Lyubov: Yes, this is a structure integrated into MAI. Professional recruiters and career consultants work here.
Olga: The Digital Personnel Platform provides career consultations for students. Even if a student does not have a clear request for who he wants to be, he can contact our HR specialists, they will go through the CV, find an opportunity to improve it, tell you where to go for an internship in order to develop the necessary skills, etc. There is also the accompaniment at the moment of the employment itself and further on.
- How did the Digital Personnel Platform appear? What inspired you?
Lyubov: The very idea has been in the air for a very long time. We had various prototypes and services. As part of our participation in the Priority 2030 competition, we systematized them and created a digital environment in which a student is able to develop and grow. By the way, MAI became one of the participants in the Priority 2030 project. Well, the inspiration, of course, was the love for students and aviation. Enterprises have a great need for key experts, young professionals, specialists of new-level. Similarly, students have a need for conscious employment in the industry in which they came by choosing the University.
Dmitry: When we created the Digital Personnel Platform, we asked ourselves the question: “How can students understand the variety of professional trajectories that MAI opens up for them?”. As a result, a tool for individualizing the educational process was created, which has several key aspects. This is a phased refinement of the profile and specialization, training in basic disciplines in groups according to the level of training, social and humanitarian cycle focused on the formation of soft skills, the ability to choose professional disciplines from different institutes of Moscow Aviation Institute, internship at the best enterprises in Russia, including in Ulan-Ude and Komsomolsk-on-Amur.
– How does the platform work?
Lyubov: The student has a personal account, in which a number of services is available in the Personnel Platform tab: a service for creating a CV, a showcase of enterprises, where he can find up-to-date information, including vacancies available at the moment, here the student can follow the history of responses for vacancies in order to see which companies invited him for an interview, there is a showcase of internships, events (a wide range of events that form his individual educational trajectory – Olympiads, conferences, lectures, workshops, etc.).
On the other hand, we interact with enterprises. The experts of our recruitment agency perform a large amount of work for these enterprises – they select relevant candidates from among the students, test them, evaluate their personal and professional qualities, and organize interviews.
Olga: As part of the Digital Personnel Platform, students are notified about the events that are held at the university for personal and career development. The student has a showcase of available events: all information about student activities is collected in one place, where you can see the requirements for participants, understand how they can affect his work, improve his skills, etc.
– What does the platform give to students and companies?
Lyubov: Students get into the Digital Personnel platform from junior years - from the very beginning they learn how to write their selling CV. And this is very important, because already from the very first year students should think about where and how they want to work after graduation. In fact, they are taught to design their future here.
Students also gain a lot of experience in interviewing: as a result, they either find a job they like, or already have good stress tolerance during the interview and know how to present themselves profitably.
Well, for companies, the main value lies in the fact that they can meet their personnel needs, acquire experts, who are often in great deficit on the labor market. And networking: round tables for enterprises, where they can communicate not only with students, but also with each other, exchange experiences. Well, if we talk about the personnel forecast, then enterprises receive valuable information regarding their further development.
HR forecast is one of the fundamental blocks of the Digital Personnel Platform. This is work with enterprises to determine their current and strategic needs for personnel, the formation of technological forecasts. This is necessary so that the company can see the qualitative and quantitative shortage in personnel, can understand what kind of people should come to the enterprise in 10 years to perform certain tasks, participate in projects.
Olga: Due to the Digital Personnel Platform and the availability of CVs, the selection for programs in the interests of the industry, or for MAI Top 100 projects, or for internships, has become quick and convenient, as we now have more options than just to look at students and evaluate them according only to the average score, as it was before. This allows to allocate time for test tasks and face-to-face interviews, which leads to a better selection of students for a specific request.
In addition, a lot of career guidance work is underway within the framework of the Digital Personnel Platform. Students visit enterprises with excursions. Career days and career meetups are organized when representatives of enterprises come to the university and get to know students, talking about themselves. This academic year, together with Institute No. 1 "Aviation Technology" of MAI, a lecture hall "Aviation: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow" was launched, where we invite amazing people - those with whom students do not meet in ordinary life: pilots, aircraft engineers, testers. We met with Aleksey Kochemasov, a military and commercial pilot and instructor of the Pobeda airline; Alexander Efremov – Doctor of Technical Sciences, Head of Department 106 "Dynamics and Control of Aircraft" MAI, Head of the Laboratory of the WCRC (world-class science center) "Supersonic"; Sergey Avakimov, a Tu-144 test engineer and many others.
– How many universities are platform operators and how is interuniversity work organized within it?
Lyubov: We have a Digital Personnel Platform consortium, it unites nine universities – these are technical universities, including those specializing in aviation, engine building, etc. We work within the framework of network interaction: we conduct network educational programs, due to which students study in two universities simultaneously, and this helps to strengthen their competencies. In addition, we organize network, regional practices and internships – guys from different cities (Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, etc.) come to practice in Moscow, and MAI students go to universities and for internships at enterprises in these cities. This is very important, since design bureaus are mostly located in Moscow, and production facilities are in the regions - in this way we supplement knowledge, expand the horizons of target students of design bureaus with internships in production, and vice versa, we introduce children who will work at enterprises in the future the work of design bureaus.
In addition, we connect students from consortium universities to our Digital Personnel Platform.
– Tell us about the selection of students for additional professional education programs. It is carried out via the platform?
Lyubov: Yes, that's right: we announce recruitment on the platform. These are not ordinary programs, but programs in the core of which work with a real project, with a multi-level composition of participants. Heads of enterprises, employees of the MAI Competence Centers, and students can participate in one project – such an interesting symbiosis that allows both students to prove themselves and enterprises to look at potential employees from among the students participating in the programs. The selection takes place in several stages: the formation of your own CV, the assignment, its evaluation, interview.
– And how long has the platform existed? What results have you achieved so far?
Lyubov: The platform has existed for about a year already, and today it has more than 3,100 CVs of students, almost 300 open vacancies. We cooperate with more than 100 enterprises. Also, despite such a short period of existence of the platform, our project has already become the winner of the Russian competition of best practices for youth employment, organized by the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation in the nomination “The best digital solutions for activities to promote youth employment”.
247 students got employed via the Platform, 62 people completed an internship and 275 students completed the traineeship, including in the regions. Of course, we are not going to stop at this – we will grow in all key directions.
– What has changed in the educational process with the appearance of the Digital Personnel Platform?
Olga: As part of the Digital Personnel Platform, we launched a large pilot project to rework education using the example of a bachelor's degree in Aircraft Engineering and a specialist degree in Aircraft Engineering. Level disciplines appeared, such as mathematics, English, so that the guys did not study in academic groups, as they usually study at the university, but in groups of students corresponding to their level. Teachers in such groups are focused on different tasks in order to maximize the efficiency for the student. It is important to note that the guys who came with poor preparation have every opportunity to catch up and overtake their classmates.
Dmitry: Modern education is on the path of individualization now. In addition to the standard package of knowledge and skills, each student must personally determine for himself what he will be unique and competitive in. And for a future engineer, this is even more relevant: before designing complex technical systems, one must learn to design oneself as a professional.
– How do you plan to develop the platform?
Lyubov: Now we are faced with the task of connecting the Consortium of Universities to the platform, because many regional enterprises need professionals. We also connect the department to the platform, this will increase the number of vacancies and places for internships and traineeships. And, of course, we plan to increase the pace of employment, internships and traineeships more and more. As part of personnel forecasting, we want to expand our coverage – to work with several industries: aviation, aerospace, air mobility and others.
Lyubov Bogush
