The company currently employs professionals from more than a thousand fields. We are structuring our work. We have a system whereby an employee works in a number of professions over the course of their career. And indeed, in this rapidly changing world, we will have to change our skills, our professions — Sergey Saratov, Head of HR Department, JSC Russian Railways.

When we speak about a strategy for working with young people, I think it’s important to remember that they will live according to different rules. According to various studies, they will have 15–20 jobs, several professions, work in a number of different cities, and so on. It has therefore become important for all major employers to attract young people who will, in accordance with the organization’s cultural code, remain within the organization’s perimeter and find themselves within it — Andrey Ocheretny, Managing Director - Head of Academic Partnerships, Sberbank.

Our own research also indicates that ‘communities’ is not just a word, it is a highly energy intensive concept. The more we get various communities involved in Rosatom, the more we create an aura around potential future employees at the company. This gives people the chance to immerse themselves in the corporate culture and to see the organization from the inside. This is important, because Rosatom is far from just being a collection of nuclear power stations... Of course, it’s a whole new universe to the uninitiated. And at Rosatom too, it’s very much the case that you can change profession more than once. You can live multiple lives — Elena Egorova-Kirillova, Deputy General Director - Director of the Methodology and Development Block, ANO Corporate Academy of Rosatom.

I found the latest study done by HeadHunter in 2021... There is a very interesting range of skills and competencies which a young specialist needs to have. There are no hard skills listed at all. The most important skill listed was teamwork. Communication skills were in second place, with computer skills coming third — Oxana Achkasova, Head, Leaders of Russia National Management Competition.

We are a company which is responsible for safety, for the safe transportation of goods and passengers. So, we aim to strike a good balance between hard and soft skills. Professional skills are of course fundamental. Personal qualities, meanwhile, are a bonus which helps people get selected for higher positions and gives them the edge over their colleagues — Sergey Saratov, Head of HR Department, JSC Russian Railways.

We can say that the most popular skills – communication and teamwork – are popular simply because everyone needs them. After that, things depend greatly on which specific role we’re looking at — Andrey Ocheretny, Managing Director - Head of Academic Partnerships, Sberbank.

Employers invariably believe that universities are not training students exactly the way they should, with the result being that the graduate does not meet the needs of the employer. Meanwhile, the universities say that employers are not properly specifying what they need or setting out what kind of specialist needs to be trained — Sergey Saratov, Head of HR Department, JSC Russian Railways.

What is a key universal competency for an employer? In my opinion, it’s awareness. If a person is a good match for their chosen job and education, and if they consciously understand why they need it, then you get a serious challenge for the higher education system. That’s because universities don’t always think along the lines of, ‘If you enrol with us, the return on investment will be this’. Universities don’t always think about how their product is packaged in terms of educational programmes — Andrey Ocheretny, Managing Director - Head of Academic Partnerships, Sberbank.

We looked at 120,000 students... And the skills that you, dear employers, need from them decline from the first to the fourth year. They only develop two skills: analysing information and developing solutions. The first skill is down to the fact that the students are studying... And the second one is about following rules and procedures. This is a skill that puts the student into a box of sorts... The skills that are essential to creativity, to thinking, to developing a strategy, to achieving a result – these are inversely proportional to skills related to following rules and procedures — Dmitry Guzhelya, Head of Evaluation and Methodology Department, ANO Russia – Land of Opportunity.

Like Russian Railways, like Sberbank, we start our work from the school desk... We work very closely with the teaching community and with parents. We believe that it is not enough to get the child interested and give them careers guidance. Teachers need to do this too. They also need to understand where this path leads for their pupils. And this path should also be clear to the parents — Elena Egorova-Kirillova, Deputy General Director - Director of the Methodology and Development Block, ANO Corporate Academy of Rosatom.

We are establishing centres of excellence. These are not only needed to help each and every young person evaluate what awaits them after university, but also to develop, build and – most importantly – possess an understanding of it. That’s because their biggest problem is that by the time they get to their fourth year at university, they can lose faith in themselves and in the future — Dmitry Guzhelya, Head of Evaluation and Methodology Department, ANO Russia – Land of Opportunity.

There are indeed four groups of skills: personal skills, universal skills, cognitive skills, and communication skills. You can work forever to develop these skills, but if a person is not a good fit, they will simply leave — Marina Buntova, Chief Executive Officer, Platform "Potential of the Сountry".

When we make a hiring decision, we not only evaluate the candidate in terms of their professionalism, but also in terms of their personal characteristics and values — Elena Egorova-Kirillova, Deputy General Director - Director of the Methodology and Development Block, ANO Corporate Academy of Rosatom.