News November 2, 2016
Companies Come Together to Offer Unique Training Opportunity for Millennial Hires
RICHMOND, VA – November 2, 2016 – CapTech, a leading IT management consulting firm, is constantly elevating their hiring and talent management programs to meet the changing workforce. From June to September 2016, they partnered with their client, RetailData, to create a unique opportunity to train college hires through a real world client engagement experience. Three start-groups of college hires from top universities across the US participated in CapTech's College Bootcamp, delivering data and analytics solutions to support RetailData's strategic roadmap.
RetailData, LLC provides pricing intelligence services to Fortune 500 retailers across the country, leveraging their well-established collection methodology and robust data and analytics tools. "We are focused on innovation in order to continue to raise the value we deliver to our clients," said RetailData CEO Christopher Ferguson. "We were excited by the opportunity to partner with CapTech to leverage the new talent that they are bringing right out of university. Our hope was to gain out of the box insights and new approaches to complement our current strategies."
CapTech's College Bootcamp program is designed to simulate a full lifecycle of a client engagement, coupled with intensive hands-on learning and candid feedback from leadership. The program has a great track record: 88% of CapTech's college hires are still employed after 3 years, compared to the national average of 69%.1 This is the first year a real client engagement has been paired with the program.
"We were very pleased with the ability of CapTech's bootcamp to generate a proposal for a completely different approach to how we do business. These college hires were able to produce seasoned, consultant-level analysis that provided options and industry insights that were very fresh," said RetailData CFO Tamir Sherif.
Traditionally, college hires in the consulting industry find themselves in roles where they do not engage with clients for a few years. "I didn't expect to be working on a client project right out of the gate," said a recent graduate from Davidson University. "It raised the stakes and gave us a real sense of accomplishment at the end. It gives you a solid foundation of the company as well as a primer in new technologies from experts in the field."
CapTech's bootcamp mirrors a recent article by Harvard Business Review, which noted that Millennials are interested in a steady stream of feedback as well as continuous learning opportunities in order to develop new skills and knowledge.2 One of this year's college hires from the Data & Analytics program at the University of Virginia said, "The experience trains you to be flexible, to adapt to a client's needs, to learn quickly, and to be confident in yourself. It really bridged the gap between college and my first job in a short period of time."
"Since the inception of the company, consultant training and development has been a key part of our strategy to ensure our talent stays ahead of the technology trends and has a compelling career path," says CapTech Chief Talent Officer Joanna Bergeron. "In addition to continuing to innovate in this space within our organization, we have leveraged this expertise to help our clients evolve their talent strategies."
About CapTech: CapTech is an IT management consulting firm that bridges the gap between business and technology. CapTech delivers transformation, customer engagement, data & analytics, and custom IT solutions for private companies, public companies, and government agencies. The company's collaborative approach helps organizations grow their business, engage with customers and turn data into powerful insights. Headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, CapTech has locations in Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Chicago, Columbus (Ohio), Denver, Orlando, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. Metro.
About RetailData, LLC: For more than 25 years RetailData has been the service industry leader for all things related to omni-channel pricing intelligence; from data collection to validation and matching to superior analytics. With a dedicated team of more than 2,300 data collection employees, RetailData is uniquely positioned to collect data within any retail environment (bricks and mortar or online) across the US, Canada and Mexico. Headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, RetailData is a wholly owned subsidiary of Markel Ventures. For more information, visit www.RetailDatallc.com or call us at 804.678-7500.
[1] http://www.workplacegroup.com/backwards-is-forwards-missing-the-true-roi-of-college-recruitment/
