The Web Summit’s exhibition hall captures attendees’ attention: the booths design, the demonstrations, the merchandising. The ultimate goal is to promote new products, to network and, in some cases, to recruit top talent. Técnico graduates stand out and many companies turn their attention to them.

Xpand IT has been a regular presence in the Web Summit. Rui Maia, human resources manager at Xpand IT and Técnico alumnus, knows that this is a great opportunity to recruit top talent. “This year, we are more focused on recruiting”, says the Técnico alumnus. “We have a lot of people visiting our booth and we have noticed that there are many people looking for a job in Portugal”, he adds. According to Rui Maia, the IST spin-off is looking for “engineers, namely Information Systems Engineers. We also started to recruit students of Information Systems Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering because they have some interesting skills on data science and machine learning because we are now investing in these areas”.

“At Xpand IT we help our workers to develop the knowledge acquired at the university,  to take advantage of what they know and of what they like to do. They have the opportunity to develop other skills, so that the development of talent can benefit both parties and they feel motivated”, says Rui Maia.

Marta Pinheiro, Talent Acquisition Lead at Accenture Portugal, stresses the importance of recruiting Técnico graduates: “We recruit about 100 Técnico graduates every year for almost all our areas”. “We also have many Técnico students doing our Summer internships. Técnico graduates are very well prepared, proactive and independent. We value their different backgrounds so we end up hiring different engineering graduates”, she adds.

At a time when there is much talk about automation and job loss, Marta Pinheiro stresses “the human being must have the ability and the resilience to adapt to new situations and environments. This is something that we find a lot in Técnico graduates”.

This year, Accenture decided to recruit a “talent busters” team to hunt for top talent at the Web Summit. “Accenture also has a recruitment team here”, says Marta Pinheiro. “A lot of students are visiting our booth to get more information. Although they have no experience they want to work at Accenture, so this is very positive”, she adds.

“We believe that talent is very important to a company and we know that Técnico is a school of reference, so recruiting Técnico graduates is a fundamental priority for us”, says Tiago Barros, Técnico alumnus and Partner at everis. “Técnico is perhaps the school with whom we have a partnership for a long time and it still is our main source of recruitment”, adds the Técnico alumnus.