Setting Up an Offshore Software Development Team: Is Poland a Good Location for IT Outsourcing?
September 15, 2022
How To Use RPO When Recruiting IT Team in Poland: 6 Stages & Checklist
October 17, 2022
Founded 10 years ago in Sweden, LeoVegas Group develops software for online casinos. As Humeo Recruitment Geeks, we supported our client in setting up an IT hub in a new location – Poland. In this case study, we describe the effects of this project from January to June 2022, but we continue to provide recruitment support to LeoVegas.
Tech Recruiters
dedicated to LeoVegas Group
Jan – Jun 2022
months of work
Hired people
specialists
LeoVegas Group operates chiefly in Europe. It is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden (it has offices in two more locations in Sweden), but it also has offices in Italy, the UK, the Netherlands, and Malta. LeoVegas recently started working closely with MGM from the United States, and the two businesses are about to join forces. The organization employs over 1,000 staff and keeps bringing new people on board. This year, LeoVegas intends to hire around 40 new employees for the Polish office alone, using such solutions as Humeo’s RPO.
Table of Contents:
Recruiting developers for the new IT hub in Poland – challenges & tasks
Client’s Review
Task implementation, results
Detailed information from the project
Summary
Challenges & tasks
Humeo’s tech recruiters, Lidia and Patrycja, were tasked with recruiting programmers in Poland and helping LeoVegas develop recruitment and onboarding processes for the newly-established IT hub in Poland. As the project progressed, its scope and the client’s needs expanded. Ultimately, as part of the RPO service we provided, we were tasked with recruiting:
- 30–40 Java Developers (by the end of the calendar year);
- 2 QA Engineers;
- 2 Network Operations Center Engineers;
- 1 Team Leader for the newly-formed IT team in Poland (this person would also work closely with the Swedish managers);
- 1 HR Manager to manage the newly-formed team and the office in Poland.
In addition, our services included:
- providing consultancy on choosing a new office in Warsaw for the Polish team of developers;
- creating and optimizing end-to-end processes for the recruitment of developers in the Polish market;
- developing a long-term strategy for recruiting and matching developers to LeoVegas teams;
- helping create an employer branding strategy for the Polish market;
- educating the client’s hiring managers on the characteristics of the Polish job market and the Polish IT community;
- participating in the development of the onboarding process for the newly-established team of developers from the CEE region.
Needless to say, working on all these tasks in a way that would ensure top-quality recruitment processes and the best possible candidate experience was quite challenging. Our tech recruiters’ knowledge of the Polish IT sector proved invaluable here, but so did the ease with which they handled the tasks and their flexible approach to making decisions. This was possible because they were in constant and direct contact with our client (chiefly thanks to the RPO model), and consequently thanks to the trust that LeoVegas continues to place in us.
Client’s Review
Humeo’s RPO solution proved to be a perfect fit for a company like ours. When we decided to open an IT hub in Poland, we knew that the biggest challenge would be to hire programmers. The RPO service allowed us to start recruiting quickly without wasting our time searching for recruiters. We are working together with very good results. In addition, we enjoy the flexible approach and access to Humeo’s knowledge of the Polish market, which they have gained by working on other projects.
Magnus Gagnelid
SITE MANAGER @ LEOVEGAS GROUP
Task implementation, the current status of the project
The project is ongoing, and the contract with LeoVegas has been recently renewed. In the period from January to the end of June 2022, LeoVegas’s recruitment partnership with Humeo has brought the following results:
We have hired:
- 14 Java Developers,
- 1 QA Engineer,
- 1 Team Leader,
- 1 HR Manager.
In addition, we were involved in the opening of LeoVegas’ new office in Poland in Warsaw (Mindspace at Koszykowa 61).
of the employees hired by Humeo’s recruiters are satisfied with their new workplace.
The newly-hired developers have already had the opportunity to integrate as a team, and some of them have already visited the HQ in Sweden. Every new employee is invited to visit the Swedish office to get to know the Stockholm team and go through the first stage of onboarding. Of course, such visits are arranged flexibly, and they are optional because some people may be forced to postpone their trip to Sweden or may not be able to go.
Detailed information from the project of recruiting developers for a new IT hub in Poland
The strategy and the action plan
Setting up a completely new branch office in a new location means the need to stay abreast of the changing situation. One of the biggest challenges therefore involved embracing the agile mindset in responding to the changes in the client’s needs, and Humeo’s tech recruiters rose to this challenge with flying colors.
When recruiting candidates for the new tech team, our recruiters implemented the following plan:
- 1. Briefing, decisions on goals and priorities
- 2. Job offers
- 3. Intensive sourcing and the posting of job listings
- 4. Processing candidates and onboarding new hires
- 5. Analyzing the market and introducing improvements
1. Defining the scale of the recruitment process to select relevant tools;
2. Discussing actual recruitment needs (importantly, with both senior managers and Team Leaders);
3. Creating a candidate persona and determining the recruitment market (it was important to plan in advance if candidates should be recruited outside Poland and when).
Deciding on the content of job offers based on information about the client’s recruitment needs, the candidate persona, and the recruitment market.
1. Testing several job boards (including Just Join IT, No Fluff Jobs, Bulldog Jobs, and LinkedIn);
2. Analyzing candidate sources and choosing the best platform to post jobs (we ultimately chose Just Join IT and No Fluff Jobs).
1. Making screening calls and scheduling the following stages of recruitment;
2. Providing feedback to candidates after each stage of recruitment;
3. Presenting job offers to candidates;
4. Planning and implementing the onboarding of new hires.
1. Observing the Polish job market, providing advice to the client;
2. Designing a CX survey questionnaire and collecting feedback from candidates on a regular basis;
3. Implementing improvements in the recruitment process;
4. Updating job offers, including the benefits package (for example a personalized approach to candidates and the introduction of a monthly amount to be spent on selected benefits).
In this case, the recruitment strategy involved repeating the above plan periodically, by regularly asking the LeoVegas Team Leaders about their current needs and their requirements for IT specialists. In addition, Humeo’s recruiters continued to re-map the market, analyze candidate behavior and sources, and suggest solutions that would allow our client to hire more effectively and ensure the best candidate experience possible.
The client’s key requirements for IT specialists
LeoVegas wanted the candidates to have technical skills but also to fit into the Swedish work culture. When recruiting candidates and presenting them with job offers, we paid attention to such areas as:
- Technology stack for IT professionals:
- Must-haves: Backend: Java, Spring, Springboot, MySQL
- Nice-to-haves: Backend: Kotlin; Agile; cloud solutions: Google Cloud Platform; microservices
- Attaching importance to work-life balance;
- Understanding LeoVegas’ organizational culture and being open to integration into an international team;
- Having a proactive approach, showing initiative and teamwork skills;
- Openness to:
- a rapidly-changing environment at the intersection of a startup and a corporation;
- the opportunity to meet in person the Sweden-based team in LeoVegas’s HQ;
- continuous development (the company offers development opportunities, but the candidate must want that too).
Additional support for the recruitment of developers in Poland
To better understand the client’s organizational culture and to get to know the product and the people behind it, Humeo’s recruiters also made three business trips: to Sweden (twice) and to Malta.
Importantly, LeoVegas employees were very open and welcomed them as if they were in-house recruiters. The Team Leaders from Sweden were also eager to visit Poland, and they’ve already made such a visit.
When setting up a new office for LeoVegas in Poland, we also helped arrange the space to provide new hires with the equipment they needed to work and to promote the Swedish work culture. Its important elements include joint celebrations of important moments in the life of the company. In addition, each new hire has some say in how the office looks. One of the ideas was that the office should have… a throne! ?
Summary
The recruitment project we have carried out for LeoVegas has been very successful. Above all, however, it has been an amazing experience and an opportunity for both sides to learn and grow. Here’s how our recruiters have summed up the project:
Lidia Skowrońska
TECH RECRUITER
From a recruiter’s point of view, this project has been very challenging, but also very rewarding. As a whole, it has gone beyond standard IT recruitment, so I’ve had the opportunity to learn a lot. First of all, the project has redefined my approach to recruitment. I now know that it does not just involve going from point A (arousing the interest of potential candidates) to point B (hiring). My view of recruitment has become much broader, I can see that there are many factors behind the success of every project. It’s a complicated picture, but at the same time one that is very interesting. I’ve also noticed a change in my approach to problems – or challenges, as some people prefer to call them ? They have become the norm for me, and I’m now confident that I can handle them, or more specifically we can handle them as a team.
Patrycja Petrykowska
TECH RECRUITER
I’d sum up the work I’ve done for LeoVegas so far in one word: challenging. An interesting challenge that has taught me how to be even more flexible. I now know more about the complexity of the business processes that go hand in hand with recruitment. Helping a company like LeoVegas grow has been a great experience. After all, we started from scratch in Poland, and now we have 17 employees, an office, and a Polish company. In addition, we are constantly improving our processes.
We can’t sum up this case study from the perspective of the end of the project because we continue to provide recruitment support to LeoVegas, which has renewed its contract with Humeo. However, the experience we’ve had with this project allows us to say we are proud of its success.Finally, we would like to thank LeoVegas again for the trust it has placed in us and the mutually beneficial business relationship. Above all, however, a huge thank you to our recruiters, Patrycja and Lidia, for all the work they’ve put into this project!
Get in touch!
What are your recruitment needs?
Fill out the form below, and we’ll let you know what we can do to help you meet your goals.
