PayPal's 'Recharge Programme' wants women technologists on a break to get back to work

NASSCOM Research has shown that only 34 percent of India’s IT workforce is female and 41% of women in technology companies tend to leave mid-career, compared to 17% of men.

PayPal announced the launch of Recharge, a unique six-week program focused on empowering women technologists to get back to work after taking time off to explore their passions, develop interests and strengthen families. The program is a part of PayPal’s commitment towards nurturing a culture of diversity and inclusion in the technology industry.

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Recharge is open to women who have taken a personal career break for a period of 1-5 years, with at least 5 years of work experience in product development and analytics and with backgrounds in Java, J2EE, PEGA, test automation, release engineering, risk analytics. Interested applicants can submit their resumes to rechargeindia@paypal.com. Registrations will close on March 20th, 2017.

Recharge aims to equip women technologists with skills and the confidence required to help them get back to work and jumpstart their careers after a break. The pilot Recharge program in 2016 received over 300 applications from women with work experience of at least 5 years in product development and analytics, who had taken a career break. Of this, 75 were invited to an event that helped them build their confidence and interview skills, followed by a boot camp that 30 shortlisted women attended. Finally, 10 participants were given the opportunity to join PayPal and continue their professional journey at the end of the initiative.

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Recharge will be rolled out in three phases, starting with a launch in Chennai and Bangalore during the last week of March, giving around 100 women the opportunity to network with PayPal and industry leaders. They will also learn about various tools to get back into the workforce, such as updating their resumes, key skills required for a good interview and effective soft skills training.

A round of interviews will then narrow down the attendees to 30 Rechargers who will enter a three-week technology boot camp conducted by PayPal as well as key industry leaders. The boot camp will focus on technology and business-oriented training to help the participants get up to speed with the latest in the industry.

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This includes an introduction to mobile app development and Node.js as well as mentorship sessions with PayPal technology leaders in the country. PayPal will then offer 10 participants the opportunity to work in its technology centers across Bangalore and Chennai in roles including Software Development Engineer, Software Development – Test Engineer, Software Development Manager, Release Engineer and Risk Analyst.