ServiceNow alumni: "The best, fastest and most efficient pathway to a new career"

Alisa Konovalova and Besart Kaza, both alumni from Academy’s ServiceNow program, have started a new career at Sofigate after graduation from the intensive training period. They now share their experience of the journey to be working in the fascinating intersection of technology and business. Read why Alisa and Besart ended up choosing ServiceNow? And what a new IT career as a ServiceNow consultant includes?

Dental technician's passion for technology led to a career change

Besart Kaza, who has completed Academy's ServiceNow training in Sweden, has always been enthusiastic about technology. Besart, who previously worked as a dental technician, had been dreaming of moving into the IT industry for several years before the actual start of a new career began.

Academy's training immediately seemed perfect for my needs – an intensive and hands-on training program that leads directly to an employment in the IT industry," Besart describes.

Alisa Konovalova, who has completed similar training in Finland, also confesses that she dreamed of a more technical job.

Before Academy, I studied linguistics at the university. In addition, I worked as a teacher and project manager at a translation agency. Finally, I found that I missed new challenges in my life.

The slowly smoldering spark only ignited when Alisa studied the basics of programming at the Open University. With her online self-study, she found that she particularly liked problem-solving tasks that required concentration, and the guidelines for a new career began to become clearer.

An experience full of “aha moments”

Alisa and Besart thought the 12-week training was a unique experience with all the emotions that follow for this intensive program – on the other hand, the intensive period was quickly over.

Besart says that in addition to the challenging moments, there was also an inspiring joy and acknowledgement of insight – "ah, I understand this!"

Fortunately, fellow students brought support for both Besart and Alisa. Both valued the encouragement received from other group members and the spirit of community.

It was amazing how the group's support made studying such a communal experience. When you felt that something was beyond comprehension, your fellow student always knew how to help," Besart describes as one of the benefits of the study period.

Alisa thought it was great that already during the training period she was able to meet employees of the future employer Sofigate, who joined in on the program as visitors.

From the beginning of the training, you could see what Sofigate was like as a workplace and what the job would be like. It increased motivation to learn quickly and made the learning goals very concrete."

ServiceNow or coding

Many people who are considering ServiceNow training may wonder why you should choose ServiceNow as your own path into the IT-field, rather than something more familiar, such as coding. Alisa was also more interested in so-called "clean" coding at first, but still ended up applying for the ServiceNow course.

I'm happy with my choice. The work has proven to be varied, challenging and versatile.

Problem solving is part of a ServiceNow consultant's workday. Alisa describes problem solving as very comprehensive. In addition to concretely wondering why a scribble doesn't work, the goal is also to form a bigger picture and help the customer solve business challenges and problems.

Working at the interface between business and technology is so much more exciting than it sounds at first," Alisa says.

Besart also praises the ServiceNow consultant's diverse job description.

Working with ServiceNow is the perfect balance of coding and working on a software platform. You can do a lot of things even without coding, but there is also plenty of JavaScript coding at work – especially with features tailored to a specific need," Besart describes.

Choosing ServiceNow as a starting point for your IT career does not exclude other IT opportunities, such as coding. On the contrary, ServiceNow is a versatile platform with which you can develop your career in many directions – for example, deeper into business development or in a more technical direction if you so wish.

For example, a ServiceNow developer can get to work on integrations and a customer portal, so you can code almost full-time," Alisa describes.

In her work, Alisa has noticed that working as a ServiceNow consultant requires not only technical skills, but also several meta-skills, such as communication skills, problem solving, quick learning skills, organizational skills, self-leadership, and information retrieval skills.

There is now a shortage of ServiceNow talent. Alisa believes that training is the perfect opportunity for a quickly change to a new IT career.

Although the learning curve is steep and there is a lot to learn at the beginning of the studies, ServiceNow training allows to build competences from the very beginning. Previous work experience is also very helpful," Alisa points out.

The best part is when values reflect work culture

At the end of the training, both Alisa and Besart knew they were employed as ServiceNow consultants at Sofigate. They praised the smooth transition from the school bench to working life after graduation, as well as Sofigate's work culture that encourages development of one's competence and professional growth.

Dare, care, grow – Sofigate's values are not rhetoric, but really reflect our work culture. Responsibility and independence are available from the very beginning, and you can learn and grow at work," Alisa describes.

Alumni praise Sofigate's working atmosphere as immediate and warm. Colleagues always provide support and sparring in challenging situations. Alisa emphasizes that the AW Academy study group, which she became familiar with during her studies, is still an amazing resource.

For me, the challenges in the beginning of the job were made much easier by the fact that other alumni from Academy also started in the same position."

Besart, on the other hand, particularly appreciates the size of Sofigate as a company.

Sofigate is the leading company in the Nordic countries within ServiceNow, without being a gigantic group. This is a clear advantage for the employee, as it is much easier for the employee to get to know their colleagues and grow skills with ServiceNow.

Alisa warmly recommends ServiceNow training for people who want to accelerate to a new career, enjoy learning new things and don't fear potential challenges.

The best thing about ServiceNow is its versatility. If any aspect of the platform doesn't feel inspiring enough, you can always study more and move on to do something else with ServiceNow. Sofigate also offers its employees versatile career paths," Alisa points out.

I can't think of a better, faster or more effective way to jump into a new career than AW Academy's ServiceNow training," Besart says.