 started two years ago, but Anders had already vouched for a stronger software development culture for years. Previously, in-house team was not an option since the risk of being dependent on only a few people was too big. Anders wanted to change this and instead build a strong development culture. 

“We are not the first company to do this journey and we are definitely not the last one.” 

Anders, who has previously worked as a consultant, wanted to find a few suppliers who could meet his needs, both for technical competence but also for sharing knowledge. He started with one consultant from Crowd Collective, 

, and since then the teams has just been growing. 

“When Christofer told me that Crowd Collective consisted of not only smart and competent people, but that they also had the skills to onboard and coach colleagues, I felt very reassured. And it has turned out very well. That is one of the reasons that we have had a high growth with Crowd Collective consultants.“ 

It became clear that with a high growth pace, mentorship was needed. Anders needed a group of people that could take responsibility for building a framework for onboarding and coaching new colleagues. Crowd Collective consultants Christofer, Lina and Patrik took it upon their responsibility to do so. 

“We are trying to have a couple of different suppliers of consultancy services, but what stands out with Crowd Collective is the way that you have helped us with our growth and our mentorship models. Christofer, Lina and Patrik have played a huge part in getting to where we are today.” 

The Crowd Collective consultants has now taken responsibility for the frontend development, both from a technical perspective but also from a coaching perspective. This arrangement allows Elkjøp to grow with more junior and senior colleagues also in the future 

“Crowd Collective has been a great partner to us since we at the moment don’t have the senior resources ourselves.” 

The journey is not completed yet, if it ever will be. Over the next years, Elkjøp will continue to grow with more talented co-workers, both consultant and in-house. The scope for Anders teams is continuously growing, and more exciting technical challenges are heading their way.  

To be able to meet those needs, growth is crucial. From Anders perspective, it needs to be a balance of employees from external parts and recruitment. 

“In the future, it is our hope to do it a bit more on our own. And we will probably use the models and framework that Crowd Collective has put in place since it has worked our really well.” 

So far, 12 Crowd Collective consultants and 11 Academic Work consultants have worked at Elkjøp, co-creating great tech and culture. It’s exciting to see what the future holds!

Our client Elkjøp (Elgiganten in Sweden and Gigantti in Finland) is on a journey to create a strong in-house software development culture, where mentorship, team culture and team efficiency are key factors.

Building a strong development culture with Elkjøp Nordic 

Case Elkjøp Nordic

Traits like communicational skills, emotional intelligence and ability to work in a team are what we call soft skills. Soft Skills are growing more and more important as the lack of [more senior] IT resources is making it harder for companies to invest in digital solutions. 

“What companies and the IT industry desperately need right now are people who work with hands-on tech, and who are willing and capable of sharing that knowledge further to more junior colleagues.”

Junior IT talents are huge contributors to any team, since most of them are eager to learn and explore new ways of working and have a high learning capacity. But to be able to utilize that drive, energy and passion you need to have a plan for introduction, mentorship and learning.  

That is why soft skills are the skills to hire right now. 

Soft skills bring a new layer of purpose to what we do 

Our Crowd Collective consultants want to be a part of closing the IT skills gap. They share a passion towards utilizing IT juniors and helping them grow into talented and engaged colleagues.  

Focusing on soft skills and mentorship, means focusing on growing long-lasting talent in addition to building great tech. That brings a new layer of purpose to what we do. 

Why are developers interested in soft skills? 

Working on soft skills means great future career opportunities. If one wishes to become a leader of any kind, having a solid track record of working as a mentor and developing your soft skills matters.  

“We provide our consultants with a safe environment to grow and reach the next level of their careers. This means that you do not need to be a full-fledged leader to join us. We look for willingness to develop and potential to grow into a role that requires more than pure excellence in tech.”

Our consultants are surrounded by people who share their growth mindset and a passion towards becoming not only better at tech, but also developing as a coach, mentor, and leader. 

During our five years, we have gone from 0 to over 100 colleagues in Sweden and Finland. What we as recruiters have learned is that experienced IT talent still want to be great at their field of tech, but they also have a hunger towards expanding their scope and tackling bigger challenges.  

Focusing on soft skills and growing into a mentor, a coach, and a leader feeds that hunger.

Soft skills like emotional intelligence and communicational skills play a crucial part within tech. Here's why!

Why soft skills matter

Tech recruiters: soft skills are the skills to hire right now! 

Why soft skills are the skills to hire?

 as we like to call him, has been a developer for 15 years, a consultant for 7, and a member of Crowd Collective since the beginning of 2022. The last couple of years, he has been focusing on roles as an Agile Coach, Scrum Master and Team Lead. Coding is still a part of his work, but his interest in work processes and agile thinking has grown. 

“I think I have been taking on these roles since I’ve always had the ambition to improve the way we work in projects. If I see possible improvements, why shouldn’t I raise my voice and see if this can make it easier for both me and my colleagues?” 

The willingness and drive to coach others has grown since Andy started working as a consultant and has really grown exponentially for him the last 4 years. That is one reason why Crowd Collective feels like the right place for him. But not the only one. 

Since Andy has been a consultant for many years, it had to be something special on the table for him to join a new company. He had different offers and discussions open but didn’t really feel that it was enough. And then he met Linda, MD and founder of Crowd Collective Linköping. 

“We just clicked during our first meeting. There is something special about her. Her energy, her kindness and her high engagement and passion for this company. This topped all the other offers I got. Money can’t buy you the feeling of community and sense of belonging.” 

After a couple of meetings, Andy was sold on the idea about Crowd Collective Linköping and the workplace that he would be a part of creating. 

“It’s been a complete joy to be a part of starting up Crowd Collective in Linköping. The energy from Linda spreads to the rest of us, and it is easy to share that feeling with our clients and colleagues. It generates warmth and honesty, something I have never felt so strongly before.” 

It’s been important for Andy to create the same experience for his new colleagues as he had, and a big part of that is getting together. For Andy, this means both physically but also to be involved in decision making processes. 

“When we create psychological trust, everybody is comfortable with raising their voice.”

At the Linköping office, there are a lot of different interests. Someone loves CrossFit, another one has a passion for baking and a third one (Andy) is a photographer. They are generous in sharing their skills and invite everyone to join. 

“It does not matter if you have been working for five months or signed your contract yesterday, everyone is always welcome! On Tuesdays we train CrossFit together with Linda and we share the pain from working out on Wednesdays!” 

The Linköping office will continue to grow, and Andy wants all his future colleagues to feel the same community as he does today. From his point of view, this will happen if Crowd Collective continues to focus on soft skills and tech skills combined and continue to be picky when it comes to recruiting new colleagues. 

“Our goal is not to grow to 100 consultants in two years. We will grow slowly and focus on the combination of soft skills and tech skills. We are still a pretty small company in Linköping, but looking ahead, I think that we will be the talk of the town. For those who wants to combine their soft skills with technical skills, this will be the place to be.” 

After 15 years of working as a developer, this is what Andy seeks in his employer. And no, money isn't it.

The talk of the town in Linköping, where culture and community triumphs money

Andy's career story

A big part in building trust is something that is hard to put into words, at least for me. It is something that has to do with intuition and what kind of person you as a mentor are. Yet there are many concrete things I have found to be useful and therefore wanted to share.  

The first step is simple: get to know the person you are mentoring 

When a new junior talent starts their assignment, I like to take time to sit down just them and I to chat about who they are and general topics of interest. Their self-confidence, expectations and how eager they are to try new things impact the mentoring pace. How fast can they be thrown into the deep end? 

Understanding their level of competence and what skills they would like to develop going forward is also very important. Even though we might usually start out with more familiar tech to feel the sense of pride and accomplishment, a shared vision of the way forward is important. When their confidence grows, new areas of tech will be explored based on their own interests. 

How I start building trust is by highlighting the fact that it is my job to be the mentor and answer their questions. It might sound a bit strange but, in my experience, this makes it much easier for the junior to reach out to me as frequently as needed. When they understand that I am not supporting them just to be nice or in addition to my daily work, they are more prone to rely on me. 

Another thing I like to emphasize in the beginning is that I too am a regular person who just happens to have more experience in this specific field that we work in. I am not special or a better human being in any way. I am an equal colleague who also makes mistakes. I can probably support in more challenging tech problems, but when it gets really tricky, we most likely need to find solutions together. 

Giving feedback and learning how to ask questions 

Giving feedback consistently, kindly, and constructively is a big part of growing new tech talent and building trust. In the beginning I focus on explaining why things are done a certain way, why that is the best solution. Quite quickly I will move towards a more coaching approach where instead of giving already thought-out answers, I give options and start asking the junior questions like: why would this solution be better than the other one?  

Activating their own thought process will force them to put their learning to use, show them how much they in fact know and prove how capable they already are in solving many of the problems they face independently. 

I also want to challenge juniors in how to ask questions. “Why doesn’t this work” or “what went wrong now” are the type of questions that do not promote independent problem solving. When I encourage them to prepare their questions properly before asking, they end up doing the coaching process for themselves.  

All the best teams that I’ve been part of had one thing in common: we were all friends who trusted each other. That obviously doesn’t happen overnight, but the things mentioned above help in building that trust little by little so that the work we do feels fun, the people we work with can become more than colleagues and our engagement towards our employer grows stronger. 

Growing junior IT talent into long-term engaged employees requires trust. Read Janne's tips on where to begin!

Why is building trust key when mentoring junior IT talent? 

Building trust with junior talent

We asked our Managing Directors of Sweden and Finland, 

, a few hot questions about our new Crowd Collective brand.

Why the need to change the Digitalent brand? 

We want to lean forward and consistently challenge our choices and our way of viewing ourselves. Gradually it became clear that Digitalent as a brand no longer portrayed us the way we see ourselves. We wanted our name and visual identity to reflect who we are and what we do in a better way.  

What’s the story behind the name Crowd Collective? 

We have been organized into different crowds according to our competences for many years. Currently we have crowds for backend, frontend, design, IT management, data and embedded. 

Crowds are our way to make sure all of us have a sense of belonging and a tight team around us where we are seen, heard and supported to greatness. We are already a collective of fantastic crowds and we really believe in the power of our way of organizing.  

Will the business model of Crowd Collective differ from Digitalent? 

We are not planning on changing our DNA – just our costume. We have built a company that our clients keep coming back to year after year, project after project, and we do not want to change that. 

Ever since 2017 when Digitalent was originally founded, we have strived to become the best place to work for IT professionals. What makes us stand out is our passion for people. We don’t only look at high technical competence, we want to grow our crowds with IT talent who possess soft skills too.  

With this skill combo we can build great tech for our clients and also help them grow new IT talent for the future by coaching and mentoring their in-house employees. 

Who are the creative minds behind Crowd Collective brand? 

The entire process from our first brainstorming sessions to launching has been 100% a team effort by Crowd Collective & AW Group colleagues. We are extremely proud of the new brand our UX designers, developers, graphic designers, video producers, brand strategists, production managers, brand managers and others have built together. Beyond impressive teamwork!

We are still the same company at heart, but with a crispier costume. Read the story behind our brand renewal!

Crowd Collective collage

Bye Digitalent, hello Crowd Collective! Our new and refreshed brand

Bye Digitalent, hello Crowd Collective!

Brand renewal

, the Lead Software Developer in the parcel & ecommerce department of 

 - one of the leading delivery and fulfillment companies within Finland, Sweden, and Baltics - had a chat with us about how growing junior IT talent is mandatory in order to survive. 

It's no secret that we at Posti have been growing our in-house IT capacity quite heavily lately, and we will continue on this path in the future too,

When diving deeper into what kind of talent 

"If we only think about software development, obviously senior developers are the easy way to go. It reduces risks when everyone is more experienced and familiar with general best practices - no arguments there. But when you hire junior talent, you think and invest in the future of the company too."

He emphasizes how companies should know by know that if they refuse to adapt to the change in IT talent supply, slowly but surely deadlines will be breached, development will lag, and talent will drain away. Changing mindset to betting on the potential of juniors is a matter of surviving in the long run. 

It doesn't damage companies to give juniors more room 

What I would like to see more is that juniors would get the actual chance to work in real projects. It doesn't damage companies to give juniors more room,

He does not agree when juniors are only given make-believe projects, demos, and tutorials to learn from. 

Goran and we at Crowd Collective agree that hands-on, real production project experience, is what counts when the aim is to grow talent quickly and engage employees for the future. But this kind of approach requires senior resources too. 

Senior doesn't only mean years of experience. One of the desired abilities is to have a deep understanding in multiple areas from software development and being able to share or present that knowledge. This willingness to introduce all the various possibilities within software is essential so that the juniors can explore and find their own preferences,

The preferable way is to have the senior developer working on the same project with the junior instead of just checking in. Hands-on coaching is a must. 

Providing continuous feedback to the juniors, regarding the exact mistakes and giving them examples in the code directly, while also encouraging and focusing on the ‘well done’ is very important to support their growth. 

 we had the challenge of not having enough senior resources who could dedicate their time to mentor our juniors. There have been continuously demanding tasks and workload, that require strong focus on planning and coding from our seniors. Dividing the time got tricky,

Partnering up with Crowd Collective solved not one but two needs 

The partnership between Posti and Crowd Collective started when Posti was eager to see if growing IT talent the Crowd Collective way would fit their needs. 

We wanted to recruit a junior developer, but we also had a need for a more senior resource, since the project was one of the most complex ones we have,

Crowd Collective provided Posti a senior developer with an impressive tech stack but also the soft skills needed for coaching and supporting others. The junior developer was found through Crowd Collective's sister company 

We decided to officially recruit the junior after just six months even though the original plan was to keep her as a consultant for one year. There were no doubts considering she was just so motivated and exceptional,

Posti got proof that the Crowd Collective concept, where senior consultants come in and take the lead in coaching and supporting junior resources while simultaneously working as a productive resource, works. 

Now we are building even bigger teams together with higher business value,

Crowd Collective seniors provide stability and Academic Work juniors bring potential with fresh ideas. That is a combo Posti wants to keep on investing in.  

With Crowd Collective's offer both senior and junior sides are covered. I definitively see more future projects for us. It has been nice to see how their mentoring is just excellent,

Our partnership with Posti is the perfect example of the type of cases we want to leave our fingerprints on in the future too. 

We provide both senior and junior IT talent and Posti provides projects with ideal conditions to grow. In the end Posti gets to recruit the junior talent to become long term employees and our senior consultants get to move on to other exciting tech projects.

How to grow new junior in-house IT talent while building great tech? The answer is in fact quite simple.

Growing junior IT talent with Posti

Betting on the potential of junior IT talent with Posti

Case Posti

While standing at the precipice of one of the most exciting steps in their start-up journey, 

 reflects on her experience partnering up with 

Deciding to work with Crowd Collective was an important decision and it has turned out really well. We realized how important it was to partner with the right firm. Looking back, the decisions on site architecture and the rest have proven to work well. We are very happy.

Cost-efficiency vs. a crowd of professionals 

During 2020, when the business began to take shape and the app development was ready to start, people at Birds Relations evaluated different strategies on how to acquire the relevant skills and competences needed. 

We knew that the breadth of knowledge we would get from Crowd Collective would be hard to match with a single developer, which was our other alternative from a cost-efficiency perspective.

There were many things left to decide also tech wise, which made the choice simpler. 

In the beginning we didn’t know which architecture would suit us best or how the tech stack should look. Having access to the entire Crowd Collective network, even beyond the consultants we hired, was really valuable for us in this early stage,

One area in which Crowd Collective differentiates itself is by offering consultants who can build competencies within a client organization. 

Consultants possess the practical skills, leadership and mentorship abilities to help shape an internal team. This makes Crowd Collective a valuable partner for both start-ups and established businesses undergoing expansion. 

We could start out with a Crowd Collective consultant as a senior developer and then phase in junior developers. We wanted, primarily, to recruit. But we know how incredibly difficult it is to attract tech talents. Therefore, it’s extremely valuable that we can access Academic Work’s entire talent pool through the partnership with Crowd Collective

Crowd has made the effort to really understand our business and wanted to be a part of its development, not just offer technical solutions,

It isn’t just important to have people with the right competencies or even an interest in the product. We need people who work well together and trust each other,

Having a constant and open dialogue throughout the development process is a vital way in which Crowd Collective consultants ensure they are aligned with the business goals. They work closely with the rest of the team at Birds, adapting to their working style and internal culture to achieve the best result together. 

From the beginning, Crowd Collective has been more of a partner than just a contractor for developers. You get so much better results when you are working with people who are excited by what they do and the product itself,

We have product meetings together, we make decisions together and we make prioritizations together. Crowd Collective is a part of our team,

 in an investment round. Their plan is to launch their app outside of Sweden during 2023. 

We think globally, and we will translate the app, the first market outside of Sweden will be Great Britain

We at Crowd Collective are proud to have been a part of their start up journey!

Why building the right team is the first step to building a successful application? Read our case study with Birds Relations!

Case Birds Relations x Crowd Collective

The value of a team in app development

Case Birds Relations

Love story that begun in the virtual world led her to Finland 

Computer games have been a part of Katalina's life since childhood. Over the years, World of Warcraft won Katalina’s heart in more ways than one. She met her husband through WoW and moved to Finland to start a new phase in life with him. 

From irregular shifts at gas stations to finding her passion 

After her move, Katalina started studying the local language immediately. She got a temporary job, but ambitious Katalina knew that irregular shifts at gas stations and kindergartens would not be rewarding enough for her.  

When searching for new career opportunities, she came across a study program in English called BITE. It was a program that combined business and computer science into one study unit. 

At first the studies felt challenging because it seemed like my classmates had much more previous knowledge about software development. But after six months something clicked and suddenly, I found myself to be best in class,

Close to graduation, she got a job offer to work as a developer. From there she continued to a small six-person consulting house to work as a team leader and designer. 

Katalina enjoyed the company for a few years until Maiju, our recruiter at Crowd Collective, contacted her to discuss a new opportunity for a fullstack developer like Katalina. 

I appreciate that employees are seen and encountered primarily as people. I also consider investments in the wellbeing of employees and overall work-life balance important,

” Katalina explains her decision to join Crowd Collective. 

No need to choose between motherhood, career and hobbies 

During 13 years of marriage, Katalina’s and her husband’s family has grown with two daughters, a dog and two cats. 

I have never experienced that a career, hobbies, and motherhood could not go hand in hand. I want to give my daughters the example of an ambitious and happy mother. Work and hobbies support my happiness,

Katalina has heard debates about the negative aspects of working as an IT consultant, such as long working hours and money being the driving force of decision making within consulting companies. However, she has no personal experience with either of these claims. 

Personally, I have always chosen my employer based on how they treat their people and face their challenges. I believe that this has contributed to how effortless it has been to maintain a good overall balance in life,

"I’m not good at math" is a poor excuse 

Katalina would love to see more women entering the IT industry. “I’m not good at math” is a common excuse she hears but does not agree with at all.  

You do not need to be mathematically savvy to excel as a developer. Logical reasoning and mathematical talent are two different things, the first of which is significantly more important in this job,

I’m not great at math either, yet look at where I am,

” she concludes with a subtle twinkle in her eye.

World of Warcraft led her to finding love and building a career as a fullstack developer. Read Katalina's story!

Katalina finding her passion within IT

Finding her passion within IT 

Katalina's career story

Lina Jonsson has grown into a “jack of all trades -consultant” 

She started as a Frontend Developer and has been able to adapt her career at Crowd Collective according to her interests. When she explains her role, you can tell that it is versatile.    

Right now, my focus is frontend development at our client Elkjøp. Besides that, I also work as a Team Lead and Platform Owner, working closely with our client to see how we can engage our teams, ensure that our leadership quality is high and that our team members are developing in the way they want to.

For Lina, the client and the teams are equally important.  

My goal is to create efficient teams and have close collaboration with our more junior developers to ensure their personal growth. I am confident that this will contribute to a deepened relationship with our client Elkjøp.

Hands-on coaching and developing teams are areas that Lina enjoys. She prefers team work over hustling solo. This gives both her and our client the opportunity to grow with more junior colleagues and is a way for the client company to scale up quickly. 

We have great collaboration together with Elkjøp and we are currently starting up a new team – the fifth team we have been involved in since our start in 2019! For us, culture is key, and we want to spread the Crowd Collective vibe to all the teams we are working with.

Lina’s ability to grow into a more senior role has left the rest of us in awe. 

Lina has also been focusing on her own growth since starting at Crowd Collective. According to her, the mentorship she has received from both her colleagues and our People Partner has had a big impact.  

I joined Crowd Collective because I needed a new challenge. I wanted to work in a smaller company where I can get to know everyone, and my opinion is heard and respected. And of course, I wanted to focus on my career. I started as a Frontend Developer – and now I also get to use my soft skills and help other people grow. In our peer-to-peer context, I get so much inspiration from other colleagues.

Lina has been with Crowd Collective since 2018. Our culture has played a big part in why she’s still here.  

One thing that I really appreciate is that my colleagues are so welcoming! Crowd Collective is a very inclusive company. We do so much together, and everyone who wants to join is always invited. You are not just offered a seat on the bus; you are welcome to take the wheel and steer us into the future.

High engagement, personal growth and enjoying your work at the same time? Yes, it is possible!

 A junior Frontend Developer looking for the place to grow now celebrates 3,5 years with Crowd Collective. This is a story of Lina who has grown into a leader, a senior developer and a much-valued culture carrier. 

Leading her own and the development of others.

Leading her own and others' development - Lina's career story

Leading her own and others' development 

Lina's career story

A lot of the formal interview training I have gone through has been in the aspects of making sure that I get the most out of the 60 minutes I have to make a decision about you as a candidate. I am trained to want to know as much as possible about the patterns of your behaviour, the reasons for your actions and if you might be a good co-worker at our company but also to understand if you according to these questions would enjoy working here. 

I sometimes ask the candidates afterwards if they thought the interview was tough. Almost everyone says yes. Though but rewarding, because you know that you will end up with colleagues that has been assessed in the same way.

Crowd Collective works with a interview structure called “competence based interview questions”. The way competence based questions work is that you as a candidate will need to answer a bunch of questions about your previous experiences. How and why you acted as you did and what the result of your actions was. This is how we understand your behaviour. 

Interviewing during a recruitment process might not give us the whole picture, but this is one of the best tools we have in our toolbox when it comes to hire new people. Sure, it might be more relaxing to answer questions about your background and your hobbies, but this doesn’t give me any idea of your competence as a consultant or not.

Research shows that competence based questions are the most validated interview method there is, and this is why we use it. If you had to choose, how would you like me to recruit your own co-workers in the future? With a method that works, or one that is more convenient to the candidate?

My thought is, this should not feel any harder than showing your technical skills. A reflection of why you sometimes feel that the interview part is harder is that you might feel exposed. Questions start going through your mind - Is my behaviour within the norm? Is it okay to expose my bad sides as well? What will they think of me? Was this a good example or did I just rambled on? 

We are sometime, maybe often, more critical to our own personal skills than our technical. But have no fear! I want to get to know you and there is nothing wrong about talking about a situation where you felt you didn’t preform to the best of your ability. Just don’t forget to also tell me what you’ve learned from it.

So, how can we make this the best possible meeting for the both of us, and how can you as a candidate also get the most out of the 60 minutes that we spend together? For me, this is more of a conversation than an interview, and it is important for me to understand why you are interested in us and what your concerns might be. Is our company behaviour something that you want to be a part of? Are we making decisions in a way you feel comfortable with? Is the involvement in our company to high or to low for you preferences? To get to know this, you need to ask me questions as well. And I promise, even though I might ask myself later if I was clear enough or if this was a good answer, I will always be honest and just as nervous to see if you like Crowd Collective.

Linnea Börjesson, Brand and Recruitment Manager

Some of our stories