Modern IT Recruiting in Switzerland: Insights from Larissa Zollinger from IPT
16.04.2026, 11:50
with Larissa Zollinger & Greg Tomasik
Hey Larissa, welcome to the RecruIT interview with SwissDevJobs. You are working for Innovation Process Technology (IPT) in Switzerland and we have some questions in regard to your recruiting. You studied sociology and educational science at the University of Zurich, spent several years at Great Place to Work and are now Senior Specialist People & Development at IPT. How did you end up in the world of IT consulting?
Well, first of all, thank you for having me and I know when you hear, oh you're a sociologist, you work at an IT consulting company, it does sound like a really far stretch. I can imagine that. I think I would see it the same way. So maybe let me start from the beginning. I'll give you a quick explanation of what sociology is. So sociology is, let's say, the science of understanding how a society or mechanism or group or a company works and that's a very brief description of sociology. There are about 10,000 descriptions of it but I think it will work for the sake of this conversation. So yeah, when you look at that, this is what would interest me in the first place and then when I was studying, I got this job as a working student at Great Place to Work and it's a company that really looks into organizations and tries to figure out how they work and how they can actually improve the whole situation for everyone there. So I think this was my first touch point where I took what I learned in sociology into the real world.
And I thought it was really cool, I learned a lot there because it was more or less HR consulting and when you work in consulting, you work with so many different clients and people and different industries. So I learned a lot there. And after some point, I thought, well, it was very interesting but when you talk about company culture, you always talk about, let's say, an aggregated level of things. It's always, the company or maybe a unit that you talk about but at some point, I thought it would be cool to work more with individuals on an individual level and that's when I was looking for a new job and I found this job at IPT which is an IT consulting company and I thought, well, I worked at a consulting firm, maybe I could take my talents somewhere else and I applied. I had no internal HR experience, only the experience as an HR consultant but I still got the job and I would say this is how I ended up in IT consulting as a sociologist.
What exactly does IPT do and which areas do you consult in and what sets you apart from other consulting firms in Switzerland?
IPT is a Swiss company working only in Switzerland. We have been around for 30 years this year. We are celebrating 30 years of IPT and what we do, we are very technical. We're technical consultants. We go to clients and we don't just do tasks or let's say just write code. We are there to fully advise the client on whatever issue they have. It depends on what stage of the project that they need us, they're in but it doesn't really matter when we come in. When we come, then it's usually to solve complex problems in a technical way. But we always, and this is very important to us, we always bring this consulting point of view that we could say the human part because IT consulting is very much human-driven because you make software for people. So I think this is important to us that we say, we also bring the consulting part of the business where we advise clients, we figure out their needs and we anticipate their next needs. I think this is what makes us stand out is that we are technical but also great consultants.
And in regard to standing out, IPT has just launched the “Houptsach Bärn” campaign. It's something which is really special in Switzerland. What can future colleagues who choose the Bern location expect from this?
Yes, I would say our clients, they are in Zurich, they are in Bern or just in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. We do have a lot of business, I would say, in Bern, as do other consulting firms.
And when you come and work with IPT in Bern, you can expect interesting projects, really cool, fun colleagues. I think this is also important to us to say we don't take ourselves too seriously. So you can expect to have fun, you can expect to be challenged because we always say it's not the easiest job being in IT consulting.
There are probably easier things to do out there but if you want to have a challenge, if you want to meet new people, new clients, new technologies, then this is what you can expect.
Speaking about recruiting talents, how do you see as a recruiter how the job market in Switzerland changed or is changing during the last two or three years? Do you see it's easier or tougher to recruit the top talents and what changes and trends do you see?
That is an interesting question. I think we have seen a lot of change during the last two to three years. We at IPT have seen an increase in applications. It's interesting to see so we get more applications every year. So that means there are people that are interested to come work with us.
However, just because you have more applications, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is easier to find the top talent. So to answer that part of your question, I think we have more people looking for jobs. We also have seen that a lot of other competitors in the IT consulting world or in IT, are no longer hiring people that have freshly graduated. So I think it is harder for people to start their career in IT compared to let's say five years ago. I think it was a lot easier back then to find a job and now it really seems that it's hard for them to find a job. So I think that is a change.
We have seen a lot of other companies letting people go. Let's say the hyperscalers for example. I mean you probably read it as well in the newspapers and everywhere. So I think a lot of things are changing. We have more people looking for a job but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is easier for us to find the talent because we need people that are very technical but also good consultants.
And I think, Greg, you also did this report. You published it in January, right? Can you confirm my observations from that or the insights that you got from the report?
Yes. So basically the data also shows that in recent years I would say the market shifted a bit towards the employers because there are less jobs on the market and there are much more candidates on the market. But we also see that despite this there are also new challenges in this job market. And I think one of them which is also what the job seekers mentioned in our report is that often when they apply they basically receive no feedback and there is a lot of ghosting happening in the market.
On the other hand, we also noticed and this is also I would say an unfortunate trend that many candidates use AI tools to automatically apply for tens or even hundreds of roles. And sometimes these tools make the application to every possible role that seems somehow suitable for the candidates. Which also makes it harder for companies to give feedback if they receive hundreds of applications for each role.
And also I was wondering how you deal with this and if you actually notice this trend, if you see a lot of AI-assisted applications happening?
Yeah, definitely. Funny that you say that. You can very much tell if somebody wrote their motivation letter or their cover letter, in English I think is the right word, with ChatGPT. So we see this. We receive so many applications where you just can tell that the person did not put any effort into the application. And this is something I think that job seekers need to understand that we have a lot of applications every day. And if you do not put any effort into your application, not just the cover letter but also the CV. The CV is the one tool which you can use to just quickly pitch yourself in let's say 30 or so seconds. If the CV is not done in a cohesive way or in a way in which you understand what the person actually did or what their strengths are, then it's just going to be very difficult for us to evaluate if you have the right skill set that we need.
And with the increase of applications we also cannot just take hours for one application. We really have to go through this. So, we do see that there's a lot of people that are using AI tools to create their applications. It makes it harder for us because we cannot really differentiate people anymore if you're just going to use an AI tool. You know people will probably use the same prompts or very similar prompts so everything starts to sound the same. And what we want at IPT is we really want to find out who you are, what makes you tick, and if you're just going to bring us the AI version of yourself we cannot see that.
So I think this would be a strong suggestion to job seekers. If you are very much interested in a company, if you want to go work there, take your time, tailor your CV, tailor your cover letter to this company and put in some effort and put in the human part of you.
Yeah, I think this is very solid advice and I think the human touch will definitely make it out for, I would say, all business relations these days. When everyone is using AI then being authentic is something that is really valuable.
Absolutely.
And just because I think there will also be many HR professionals and recruiters listening to us later on, from the process or tools perspective, how do you deal with this increase of applications? Do you also use AI-assisted tools for that or do you rather change your processes to adapt to this challenge?
We have to a certain degree changed our processes but so far we aren't really leaning into the AI tools yet because we think, we really want to put the effort into looking at the applications. But yeah, it is a solution for now. We are aware that if the applications increase the way they have increased the last couple of years, let's say in five years or so, we might have to change our MO because there is just a finite amount of time we cannot, as a company, spend on looking at applications.
Surveys show that multiple interview rounds and a lack of feedback are among the biggest frustrations for applicants. How does IPT handle this and what do you do to keep the process attractive for your applicants?
First of all, we always pride ourselves on our feedback culture internally but also externally. Feedback is an important or integral part of the interview process. I will get into that later on. But overall, also to make the process attractive for the candidates, we have a maximum of three meetings or three interview rounds because we think this is enough. During those interview rounds, you will as a candidate always get to ask questions. I have experienced it myself in the past where I applied to certain jobs and I got to ask maybe one or maximally two questions at the end of the conversation. We do not do it that way. We really want to create an environment where candidates can also ask questions because we see it as a two-way street when you do an application. We have to figure out, hey, do we think you can come here and work here successfully, be happy for a longer period of time? But the candidate, of course, also has to figure out whether they would like to work with us. I think this is part of it. We keep the conversation open during the interview. Then when the interview is over, we always give feedback within one day. The next day, you will receive a call and you will know, are we going to invite you to the next round or not? If we will not invite you, then we will give you valuable feedback and elaborate on why we don't think it's a great fit.
It always scares me when I hear that other companies ghost or they do not give honest feedback because we don't do that. We don't ghost and we always give feedback.
Fun fact: some candidates say thank you when you give them feedback, even if it's critical feedback, when you tell them, I'm sorry we cannot give you the job because of that and that reason. I have often experienced that people said, well, thank you for this very honest feedback because this is not how it's usually done. People just say, we got someone better, but hey, you gave me honest feedback and that really helped me. Even if it's tough, I think for both sides, for me as a recruiter to give the feedback and for them to receive it, I think it's the right way to go.
I've read that IPT has a flat hierarchy and no traditional managers and relies on lateral leadership, actually, and this is outstanding. Who makes decisions in your team and how do your consultants experience this structure in practice?
You're right. We have this lateral leadership approach and it is, I think, sometimes challenging, but why we did this, I think I want to get into this as well. We wanted to grow as a company without implementing strong hierarchies and when you do that, you still have to have some sort of leadership and that's why we chose lateral leadership.
In the reality of the consultants, you can imagine it that way. Our consultants, they always work in project teams. They work with other consultants from IPT and they work with engineers from the clients, so it's always a blended team and they work in the clients' offices. You have one person there in the IPT team that is responsible for the overall delivery in the team because in some way, you have to have someone that still feels responsible and that knows how to make difficult decisions and how to approach certain situations.
In that way, we have someone that is responsible, but this person does not act as the team lead or a boss. I think this is for people that have previously worked in really strong hierarchies, it might be a switch to work in this setting, but I think in IT, it is also rather common because a lot of people just work in scrum teams. Our teams are also built as scrum teams, so I think it makes a lot of sense to work like this in an IT environment.
Learning clearly plays a major role at IPT. How can applicants concretely picture the learning culture and how do young professionals in particular benefit from it?
I would say learning is really part of our DNA. I know it sounds a bit cheesy because let's be honest, all companies say that, but it is true and I have the proof.
What you can expect when you come to IPT or overall when you start your career in IT consulting as a young professional, you can expect a very steep learning curve because you get to work with clients directly, you can switch projects and teams, so you will have this by design from the business context. You will have a very steep learning curve. But what IPT does, I think we really go above and beyond. We have multiple formats when it comes to learning. We have one that is very interesting and that I have in this way never seen other companies do. We have the so-called “ERFA”, it's short for “Erfahrungsaustausch”, so you can imagine this as a small internal IT conference that we do almost every month. The whole company comes together, there is a keynote speech and then afterwards you can book a certain stream of your desire. We have an app where you can just go and see, today they have those streams and everything is organized internally by our consultants, so they can really bring in what interests them or stuff that they have going on on the projects, they can talk about it. It is very technical, of course, but this is probably the biggest thing that we do when it comes to learning, because you can imagine it costs a lot of money when you have the whole company that is on this day not working billable for clients, so you have a lot of costs when it comes to that, but as a company you think it's worth it that people learn from each other, that they also connect, because in consulting you are pretty much 95% of your time you're just in your own team and you do not get to interact with all the other people from the company.
We also want to tackle that issue that people do not know each other, so we bring them together once a month that they can get to know each other, can network and learn from each other, so I think this is the biggest thing that we do, but we have also other formats that are, let's say, smaller. We have the so-called “Tech Beer”. It's also a format where consultants can voluntarily do that. We are not forcing anyone to do that. They can just say, oh, I've learned this new thing about Kafka and I think it's interesting for others as well. Let's do a Tech Beer on it and we get together. If you want to, you can drink beer. You don't have to, and yeah, we do that, and also if you want to go and do further education, then we are also very happy as a company to support that financially, or we send people to conferences because we think it's important that they know what is going on in the overall world of IT. We do not want to just be stuck in our own way of doing things, but they're also curious to see what others are doing.
I can also add we do internal stuff as well. As you have noticed, my team is called People AND Development because we do a lot for the internal development of the consultants. What we did a couple of years back, we designed a lot of internal trainings, soft skill trainings. These days there are some more hard skill trainings, but we have really tailored the skills that we want to give our consultants and have created certain soft skill trainings for the consultants. Overall, I think you can expect a lot of learning and a lot of development.
Speaking about the learning and development and also the topic which is very hot these days and which is, how AI improves the efficiency of tech teams and how it might shape the sizes of tech departments and also their productivity. How do you see it internally? Do you already use a lot of AI tools in your consulting teams? Also, do you have a way to measure their efficiency gains and if that actually makes a reasonable change in workloads?
As always in IT, we say it depends. I think this is one of the favorite sentences of everyone. When it comes to AI tools and how we use them in the projects, it really depends on which project you're in because some of our clients might have very sensitive data. Let's say FinTech, FinSec or something like this. They will not just let our consultants use, let's say, ChatGPT or Claude or whatever. You cannot just use it there. The clients might have their own AI tools that they will let them use, but it really strongly depends on which client and the context that they are working in.
Of course, it's a hot topic. People that work at IPT, they are absolutely fanatic when it comes to technology. They love AI tools and they use AI tools just to make certain tasks quicker or automate certain tasks. So far, I think we are still in the baby steps of AI tools in our work, but it is a very hot topic that gets talked about, I think, every single day.
If you could change one thing about the Swiss IT job market, Larissa, what would it be?
I think if I could change one thing, I would wish that other companies are still hiring people that have freshly graduated, so people with more junior profiles because we are still hiring this kind of talent, but I'm fully aware that a lot of other companies aren't. So I think this is going to be a problem for the future because if you do not give people a chance to actually start somewhere, then two, three years down the road, you will run into issues because you're missing the leaders of tomorrow, so to say. So that would be my one wish that everyone gives young people that are just starting out the chance.
Thank you for this interview, Larissa.
Well, thanks for having me.
Larissa Zollinger is a Senior Specialist People & Development at IPT, combining a background in sociology with hands-on HR consulting experience to shape recruiting, candidate experience, and talent development in IT consulting.
Greg Tomasik, Co-Founder & CTO at SwissDevJobs.ch, GermanTechJobs.de & DevITjobs.uk. A Software Engineer with over 8 years of experience working at international companies. Involved in the recruiting industry since 2018, focusing on building transparent job boards for tech talents.