This year saw the renewal of Pronovix’s ITrainee program open to university students, recent graduates or those seeking a change or new career. Members of the Pronovix Recruitment lab selected three participants, who were then given the chance to learn about web development and observe the Pronovix workflow environment.
Our carefully assembled team of dedicated mentors set up the timeline, defined the goals and established the correlating tasks the participants would be undertaking.
Our three trainees in the Pronovix ITrainee program 2015 were Kitti Radovics, Bence Göbölös and László Brindza. We ended the program by interviewing our trainees regarding their reasons for joining, their experiences and their overall impression. Read on to learn what Bence had to say.
stv: Why did you choose our program?
Bence: There are a few trainee programs in the city and of course, I’ve checked them. I chose the Pronovix program, because it’s about web development. Most of the traineeships are about other kind of software development, but I wanted to learn more about web programming, because I did not have any experience in it. Now, I can improve my CV confidently with this experience.
stv: The trainee period is finished. You have some work experience now and you can compare the knowledge that you gained here with the knowledge gained at University. How do they relate to each other?
Bence: I think they complete each other. The University provides strong basics for the students, but training, such as this one, provides more practical knowledge. Real problems came up during the trainee period. At the University, we have seminars on what problems we may have to deal with, but they’re artificial ones. On the other hand, I would never have been able to participate in this project if I hadn’t had the proper basic knowledge about programming.
stv: What do you think was the most fruitful part of the training?
Bence: The project works, especially Robin. No doubt. The written exercises were good for getting acquainted with the Drupal CMS which was important, but the project tasks were about profiting from your actual knowledge. It was interesting to experience that.
stv: How was the program different from your expectations?
Bence: The most unexpected part was that the project did not have a fixed process. I mean, we faced real issues on a real project and we had to figure out, somehow, how to solve them. It was not a test, there was not a solution in the mentors’ pocket. Of course, they would have been able to solve these issues, but we were the people who needed to find a way. It was our job. We could ask questions and the people in the office were really helpful, but still we had to find the solution based on their advice.
We had the freedom to choose and decide, but the responsibility was also ours. It’s not easy to get used to it. On the other hand, it is the key to evolving. And we were working as a team, so we could check each other’s work. I think, I handled this situation well, nevertheless this was the first time I faced such a situation.
stv: What is your opinion about your team? Could you work easily together?
Bence: We did our best. All of us tried to work as hard as we could and I think we always took the tasks seriously.
stv: How did the internal communication work?
Bence: Slack is a fantastic invention, it makes communication fast and flexible, even if your partner is in a different place. It’s cool.
stv: Kristof was your so called customer during the Robin project. How did it work?
Bence: He is very conscientious. :) He knows exactly what he wants and he is really efficient, so we had to be efficient and exact, too and it also was a challenge. But he never had impossible or meaningless demands. Kristof clarified things and helped us to develop further.
stv: If you could add one more thing to the program, what would it be?
Bence: I would improve the personal mentoring process. I feel it wasn’t as efficient as expected. My mentor helped me a lot, but if there was more dedicated time to personal mentoring, it would be great. It should be decided that if personal mentoring is an option or not, but something between the two options is not the best solution I think.
stv: What are your feelings, did you become the part of the Pronovix team itself?
Bence: There was a company get together at the fishing lakes of Derekegyház. Sadly, I missed it, because I had other things to do. It would have been a good opportunity to better know the people at Pronovix. I think, I feel I would have grown closer to the Pronovix tribe if I could have participated in the company meeting when the opportunity was given.
