Zara Boost: The ZARA talent acceleration program

Manfred helps create the Zara Boost talent program

Inditex, the largest fashion group in the world and the parent company of Zara, has launched a program to boost developer talent with the help of SNGULAR’s Manfred talent agency.

The career accelerator is for developers with up to three years of experience and will take place in the company’s headquarters in the northern Spanish city of A Coruña. Successful applicants will have a unique opportunity to take their first steps in quickly picking up years' worth of experience, get mentored by top professionals and be exposed to the most advanced technology.

The program offers junior talent a launching pad for their careers, with those selected being immediately hired by Zara Tech. They will become members of a thriving team and earn a competitive salary of €30,000 per year plus a €3,000 bonus. It will be a permanent job contract and the work environment will be flexible. Zara will also cover their moving and travel expenses to A Coruña.

Whoever wants to participate just has to sign up online: https://www.zaratalent.com/en/boost/#selection

Zara offices in A Coruña

What are the benefits of the program?

• A competitive salary for junior developers in Spain — €30,000 ($35,400) per year, plus bonuses and moving expenses.
• It’s a compensated technical challenge that comes with three months of free training in Openwebinars and an exclusive t-shirt.
• The program does not discriminate by age, nationality or anything else. If someone is coming from Lviv, Kalamazoo or Timbuktu, it’s all the same. A 42-year-old is just as welcome as a 24-year-old, as long as they’re willing to relocate to Galicia.
• Candidates don’t need knowledge about a specific technology stack.
• Experience is not needed, but candidates must know how to solve technical challenges and fit in with the team’s culture.
• Those selected will get the freedom to develop their careers within Zara in the area they like best.
• Being surrounded by some of the leading experts in retail technology, who come from around the world to the charming Galicia, where the quality of life is extremely high.
• Several additional perks like a gym pass, discounts, mentoring, localization, flexible schedule and partial remote work.

Why did Zara start this program?

In recent years, Zara, just like most other companies that rely on technology in Spain, saw that getting the right talent was becoming a bottleneck. To create a better recruitment strategy and hire promising junior talent, they realized they needed to make working in Zara more attractive to talented tech professionals who were just starting their careers.

What did we do?

Manfred, SNGULAR’s tech talent agency, helped Zara’s talent team conceptualize the goals and design the program. With a deep understanding of what both companies and talent need, Manfred’s team brought expertise in recruitment and added value. The Manfred team also drew on its experience of working with leading companies to adapt Zara’s employer branding strategy to today’s job market, where people won’t just accept any job and get offers before they finish their studies.

What were the results?

The initial goal was to fill 30 junior developer positions in the Zara headquarters. We launched the program in the second half of July and it’s open until the end of August 2021. The hiring process should be finished sometime in September and then we’ll be able to confirm how many finalists made it through the selection process. In the first two weeks after launch, 346 people had applied to the program and 40 had qualified as serious candidates. That makes us highly optimistic that the program will help Zara reach its goals.