The Kolesa Group conducted a new study among Kazakhstani students interested in IT — they revealed motivation when choosing an employer in 2024.

The purpose of the study is to find out the portrait of students interested in IT, motivation when choosing an employer and find out the platforms through which companies can better interact with them. The Kolesa Group already conducted such a study last year, but in 2024 they updated the data and expanded the sample of respondents.

A total of 1008 students across Kazakhstan took the survey. The average age of the respondent is 21 years old.

*In the 2024 study, we received 15.3% more responses compared to the 2023 study. This happened due to the access to new regions and channels for finding respondents.

"Universities are willing to work with us, as they are interested in ensuring that their graduates are in demand in the market. At the Kolesa Group, we are actively working with more than 10 universities throughout Kazakhstan. As a business, we understand that it is students who will make up the majority of our team in a few years.

Therefore, we prepare students who are more suitable for the market:

- we participate in the creation of syllabuses; - we communicate with students at job fairs;- we train and employ students through the educational programs of the Kolesa Academy and Kolesa Upgrade.- once a year we hold Kolesa JunDay 2024, a large—scale free IT event for Kazakhstani students, where our experts help them lay the foundation at the beginning of their career path.

We want our educational projects to continue to benefit novice specialists in Kazakhstan. Therefore, we conducted a study to understand what is important for students when choosing an employer, which communication tools are better to use and what really motivates children to develop in IT."

The top 5 universities and colleges whose students took part in the survey:

• Satbayev University (KazNITU) — 18%• Astana IT University — 11%• International University of Information Technology — 9%• Suleyman Demirel University — 8%• Kazakh-British Technical University — 8%

The surveyed students mostly study in the following specialties:

The remaining 20% of students study in the following specialties: data analytics, automation and management, marketing, finance and international relations.

The Kolesa Group has identified the top 5 areas of interest in IT for students:

• Backend development — 19%• Data analytics — 12%• Frontend-development — 8%• ML — 8%• Product management — 7%

The remaining 5% of students (Other) want to develop in the following fields: SMM, computer graphics, IT recruiting and HR, 1C-fullstack development, hardware engineering.

Moreover, the share of "undecided" has increased compared to last year — 15%. In 2023, this figure was 8.8%. But still, in recent years, students have become more aware: in the 2022 study, 23% of respondents gave the answer "Not yet decided".

At the time of the study, 356 respondents (41%) already had work experience in IT. 50% of respondents started working in 2-3 courses.

Students with experience in IT study in the following areas:

- Computer technology and software;- Computer Science;- Management;- Engineering;- Mathematics.

Students use the following resources for self-education:

It is noteworthy that the role of YouTube and pet projects for students has grown significantly in 2024. For comparison, similar figures from the 2023 study: Youtube — 35%, pet projects — 4%.

Sources of information about vacancies/internships:

Students, regardless of their experience or lack of experience, have two common "traits":- most people find out about vacancies on hh.kz , Telegram and LinkedIn.- the share of LinkedIn in job search has increased several times compared to 2023. 

Criteria for choosing an employer in 2024 (multi-selection):

While in 2023, the top 5 factors for choosing a potential employer included: 

And in 2022, the main criteria were:

1. In the top factors of employer choice in the 2022 and 2023 studies, wages were in 3rd place, this year it came out on top among students. Career growth and training opportunities are still in the top 3 when choosing a job.

2. Most of the students with experience in IT study in the 2nd-3rd year.

3. In 2024, students use YouTube (66%), courses (53%) and the implementation of pet projects (49%) for self-education.

Recommendations for beginners in IT — https://recommend .kolesa.team/.