寄稿

Romania’s Science-Based
Human Resources
OVIDIU ENICEICUIT General manager
East West Consulting K.K.

1. Science education system in Romania
Traditionally Romania has put an accent on education
as it plays a fundamental role in preparing future
generations of scientists and engineers, making
Romania attractive for foreign corporations, as well
as for growing local businesses.
The school system in Romania is mainly free at almost
all levels, providing a large selection base at eachstage during the process. Consequently, companies
get access to a large pool of well-prepared, passionateengineers, ready and looking for challenges. This also
allows students to choose the path they want to follow
and properly utilize their potential.
Romanian universities also provide free tuition formany students, but they do offer paid options as well.
To give an idea, The Faculty of Automatic Control
and Computers - the topmost computer science facultyin Bucharest - admitted 580 new students with freetuition in 2019, and 225 new students for an annual
fee of 4,000 RON (100,800Yen) which is affordable.
Many top schools, including universities, are state
owned. Annually, The University Educational
System prepares over 8000 specialists in the ITarea, which makes Romania be mentioned in theinternational statistics as having the largest densityof specialists and, at the same time, having a very
advantageous price/performance ratio.
Public University Education is organized in 29
Romanian cities with 59 education institutions(universities), and Private University Education isorganized in 174 colleges.
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The Universities provide free access for students withoutstanding results like medals at world science
competitions such as the International Physics
Olympiad, International Mathematics Olympiad,International Computer Science Competition and soon. As a matter of fact, Romania ranks 6th in the alltime medal count at the International Mathematics
Olympiad with 316 total medals. The young
Romanian Ciprian Manolescu managed to write aperfect paper (42 points) for gold medal more times
than anybody else in the history of the competition,
doing it all three times he participated in theInternational Mathematics Olympiad. Romania has
also achieved the highest team scores and ranks 6th in
the all-time medal count at the International Olympiadin Informatics with 107 total medals.
Even though many top schools are located in
Bucharest, every major city does have scienceoriented schools with excellent results.
Starting at early ages, at least two foreign languages
are taught, commonly combinations of English,
German or French. In the IT sector, most ofengineers do speak excellent English.
Knowledge of the English language of all the IT
specialists from Romania, a significant German
minority together with numerous schools inGerman, as well as the links with the French,
Spanish and Italian languages, due to its Latinorigins, makes the linguistic barriers seem almost
inexistent in Romania’s case. So, graduates not
only having a good command of these, but studying
foreign languages also opens windows into theculture and lifestyle of the respective countries.

特集：グローバルテクノロジストとの共創

Out of 86,800 students who passed the final highschool exam known as Baccalaureate in 2019,about 14,500 chose to study abroad.
Regarding high school education, about 17% ofgraduates choose to study abroad at famous
universities. Students with outstanding results get
invited by the very top schools such as Harvard,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton,Stanford, Yale in the United States, Cambridge,Oxford, Imperial College London in the UnitedKingdom, also universities in the Netherlands,Denmark, Germany, France and Switzerland. Forexample, universities in the US offer free tuition forthese students - a win-win situation, as these students
get access to the best available education, while laterin life, through their achievements, they reconfirm thetop level of the university they graduated from. Thesestudents do come from Romanian high schools.
As an example, I include the list of universities the2016 graduates, from one science high school - theInternational Computer High School of Bucharest- , chose. These students will graduate college in2020 and will decide what to do next:
Harvard University- 3 students
Princeton University - 4 students
Stanford University - 1 student
Massachusetts Institute of Technology - 1 student
University of Cambridge - 8 students
University College London - 8 students
King’s College London - 2 students
Hague University -1 student
The following link may give a better idea of thelevel of the Romanian graduates:
http://liceu.ichb.ro/absolventi/
There are several other state-owned top high schools
with equally notable results, but they do not publish
the students’ names on their websites, such as“Colegiul Național de Informatică Tudor Vianu”,“Colegiul National Vasile Alecsandri Galati” andseveral others.

As you can also see from the above link, many students
chose to study at Romanian universities, with wellequipped IT laboratories and dedicated teachers.
These students also attend internships at companies inRomania or their HQs abroad, so they get to know thecompany and the company gets to know them at thesame time. When they graduate, they are ready to join.
Also, a large number of Romanian engineers now
work for corporations such as Microsoft, Oracle,IBM, HP, Google, Adobe either in Romania orabroad. Chances are, when you turn on yoursmartphone or your PC, it will run some code
written by a Romanian. Many of these engineers
did graduate from Romanian universities.
Last but not least, it’s worth mentioning that theRomanian education system does not force arid
memorization which, as Dr. Michio Kaku said
“crushes curiosity” and “memorization is notscience”. Instead, memorization comes effortlessly
through attractive problems, stimulating thinking
and creativity. Later, these graduates will love theirwork which becomes passion for them.

2. Major global companies are keen on
competition for Romanian IT students
Over the years Romanian governments correctly
identified the IT sector as a key part of the economy,so they took steps to grow this sector in many ways
such as expanding the IT education in universities,
creating science and technology parks, introducing
tax exemptions for IT employees and tax facilities
for IT companies. Since 2004 software makers havebenefitted from tax facilities, and in 2017 these havebeen extended to other already established ITcompanies (not software makers) with minimum
annual revenue of 10,000EUR per programmer.
Together with an additional deduction for the R&D
activities in the company and accelerated depreciationof equipment used in R&D, these have helped attract
large IT corporations as well as grow local software
companies.
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Examples would be: Oracle Romania SRL with 4,460
employees, IBM Romania s.r.l. with 3,200 employees,
Microsoft Romania SRL with approximatively 670
employees, Adobe Systems Romania SRL with 560
employees. In total there are about 100,000 IT
specialists employed in Romania.

beginning to see the results of their strategy to coopt Romanian employees into large-scale projects,
and we believe that the potential of this industry
has not yet been reached, so the coming years willcertainly bring even higher returns on US
investments in the IT sector in Romania.

Also, many young professionals choose to work
abroad. They are scouted by all large corporations
like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Facebook
and alike during university years.

The total turnover of companies directly controlled
by investors in the United States was approximately
EUR 1.4 billion in 2017, which means that the IT
industry accounts for about 30 percent of total
direct investment by American companies present
in Romania. The growing importance of the IT
sector can also be correlated with the recent
qualitative study by AmCham among its members,
according to which US investors believe they
perform in Romania thanks to digital infrastructure(52 %) and human capital (50 %).

This is not limited to tech companies. Otherindustries need IT engineers too. For example,
companies from the finance industry aggressively
scout computer science students, offer theminternships and invite them to later join.
In addition to the above, companies like CGI, Bosch,
Allianz Technology, Adient, Akwel, Continental,Dell, Deutsche Telekom, HP, London Stock
Exchange Group, Schlumberger, Schneider Electric,
Societe Generale, Zentiva and many others
participate at job fairs in Romania. For example, the“Top Employers Career Fair” in spring 2019 offered
6,000 jobs with 55% of them in IT Software plus
18% in IT Hardware according to Business Review.
(link:http://business-review.eu/business/topemployers-career-fair-offers-6000-careeropportunities-from-130-employers-198815)
Romania has already proved that it is a leader in
information technology and it is no longer a secretthat Romanian is the second language spoken in
the Microsoft offices around the world, admitted
Bruce Andrews, US Deputy Secretary of Commerceat the Regional Cyber Security Summit taking
place in 2017 at the Parliament Palace in Bucharest.
Romania’s IT industry ranks first among the mostprofitable investment for local US companies. TheIT sector in Romania has been booming in recentyears, and US companies, globally recognized fortheir rapid ability to see business opportunities,
have contributed greatly to this success. They are
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3. How to establish a relation with them
I will start by saying that Romanian students andyoung engineers know very little about Japan. By
contrast they get exposed every day from earlychildhood to the US and European cultures as they
study those languages or as they just turn on theTV. They do see themselves working in such anenvironment. By contrast, they get little information
about what it means to work for a Japanesecompany, and this usually comes from the media
which has a propensity toward exaggeration.
So in the long run, would help to present Japanesecompanies during early years of high school,
showing a product and what students would likely
later work on as young engineers. High school iswhen students set their path and select the university
they will attend. I would not be surprised that many
would make it their goal to work on these projects.
For mid-term, internships offered to university
students by Japanese companies at their Romanian
offices would not only attract future engineers, but
an internship works a lot better than any hiring

特集：グローバルテクノロジストとの共創interview and it clarifies expectations on both sides.
For software developers, organizing coding
competitions similar to what some othercorporations do may also help.
For quick hiring, it depends on the nature of theproject. If the position requires a lot of creativity
and efficient solution finding, then you probably
need one of the top graduates. The best way toreach them is an initial contact through social
media, followed by a face to face discussion with aperson with intimate knowledge of the project andthe skill to attract the graduate’s attention. These
top graduates look very carefully at what they aregoing to do and they are known to turn down offers
at large corporations like Google or Microsoft
where their role would be very limited.
For not so demanding positions, best is to present
the company and the project(s) at the universities
the graduates are expected to come from (computerscience, or electronics etc.)
Participating at job fairs may also be an option,plus posting on internet job sites and own company
site. But this comes second after active face-to-facepresentations.
It is common knowledge HR tends to be complacent,waiting passively for candidates to apply. Thisguarantees the company will mainly get those leftout by other actively scouting businesses or with an
attractive brand. HR is a sales job and reaching tostudents and engineers from early stages andcontinuously during the formation years is key togetting the best for the given budget. Before making
a decision, Romanian young engineers do evaluate
the company culture, the type of work they aregoing to do and the work environment. So,emphases on team collaboration, a happy work
environment and opportunity for training at theJapanese HQ are also important.

One more aspect worth mentioning: as “Brexit”
may negatively impact the United Kingdom’s
economy or, less likely, the ability for EU citizens
to remain in the UK, there is a possibility some ofthem will return to Romania. Don’t miss them!

4. Smart way to collaborate with them
Romanian IT engineers are passionate andmotivated by the project assigned to them, somatching the right person with the given task willachieve amazing results, well beyond expectations.
It makes them very happy when their work isappreciated. They also want to belong to a familyof co-workers, not just a company, so team building
activities as well as the collaboration-oriented
company culture are important.
If the company doesn’t have an office in Romania,
then outsourcing to a Romanian software company
is the way. For large projects larger companies like
Total Soft, Siveco or Bitdefender etc. are to beselected. For small projects, where collaboration
with smaller businesses is more appropriate,contacting professors or lecturers at computerscience universities can also provide invaluable
information and help finding these businesses.
With high-speed internet being the norm inRomania, reliable communication is not an issue
regardless of location. This gives the opportunity tofind skillful engineers and reliable IT services
providers all over the country.
With so many talented students, you will always beable to find the right young professionals for yourlarge software project or just IT support position ina different industry. Best is to make your company
well known early during the educational process
and keep in contact, so you can get the first pick atthese graduates.
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