Yandex is one of the largest Russian IT and Internet companies. Created in 2000, it owns a search engine of the same name. Operates in ten countries, the number of employees is about 10 thousand people
Task
Create a new generation educational product for those who want to master IT specialties and other new professions and skills.
Background and motivation
“In recent years, a lot of new professions have appeared, which practically have nowhere to learn. The requirements for specialists in the market are growing and changing, and people want to learn and retrain in order to be in demand, ”the Yandex.Practicum points out.
Solution
Launch an educational platform in the format of an online simulator.
implementation
The launch of Yandex.Practice took about eight months. At the start, the company created a prototype to test the hypothesis about the effectiveness of training through an online simulator. Then I assembled a team of authors to prepare engaging educational content. Having connected the simulator and content, the developers moved on to the beta testing stage: the product was tested on a group of more than a hundred people.
The learning environment was built on real situations: the simulator allows you to immediately move on to solving practical problems. For example, in programming classes, students write code from the first lesson, in design they work with real layouts.
According to representatives of Yandex.Practicum, some of the content at first turned out to be too difficult for students. In particular, the JavaScript block had to be rewritten several times to make the material more accessible.
Another problem was related to the fact that, about halfway through the journey, students usually get tired and fall into the so-called desert of despair. The results are already close, but they are not yet visible, and at this moment there are great chances to quit training. To keep the students motivated and help them deal with difficult moments, the exercises were supplemented by work with mentors. They communicate regularly with students throughout the learning process.
Yandex.Practicum was launched for a wide audience in February 2019, and in 2020 the product appeared on the US and Israeli markets. Initially, the site offered training for two professions – a web developer and a data analyst. Now there are more than ten. There are courses for both beginners and experts. “We also moved from technical specialties to more humanitarian ones: the professions of Internet marketer and interface designer appeared. This year, we also launched online English language training,” the Yandex.Practice team adds.
The results
In total, more than 1 thousand people graduated by the beginning of August, many times more students are studying now.
According to the online service, 50% of students come to courses with a request to change their career direction. 70% of students complete the course they have started and apply the acquired knowledge in practice. The same number are employed in a new specialty in the first 6–8 weeks after graduation.
Strong graduates can come to work at Yandex. However, this applies more to specialists – students of courses who want to grow from juniors to middles, and not to those who are just getting acquainted with the profession.
Plans and prospects
The developers plan to develop the product based on the task of increasing the value and value of employees in the market. “These can be courses that give a new specialty, or, for example, the ability to read technical documentation in English, which allows you to develop faster and increases the value of a specialist in the labor market. Our efforts will be directed towards this in the near future,” concludes Yandex.Practice.
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