Brains Over Diplomas: How MinTsifry and hh.ru Are Reshaping IT Hiring
An official certificate on Gosuslugi (State Services) and a verified skills badge on hh.ru: Russia has launched a publicly accessible system that assesses the IT skills of students and job seekers, giving employers a new way to identify proven technical talent.
A well-known Russian proverb says, "People greet you by your clothes but see you off by your mind." It still rings true today. But how do you actually measure that "mind" – the practical skills and knowledge that a diploma alone cannot guarantee? Russia's new IT competency assessment system is designed to answer that question. More than 20 Russian universities have already joined the initiative. During the first month of the pilot alone, organizers conducted 560 group testing sessions involving more than 10,000 students. The assessments covered far more than Python, C++, and SQL, extending to mathematical statistics and functional testing. Students and faculty members can log into their personal hh.ru accounts to assess themselves across 21 IT competencies.
Earn the Badge
The National IT Competency Verification System was launched in 2025 by MinTsifry (the Ministry of Digital Development). Job platform hh.ru serves as the program's operator, while the assessments themselves were developed with the participation of major Russian technology companies represented on the project's expert council.
Around 60% of IT job openings require skills that universities often struggle to incorporate into their curricula because technology evolves so quickly. As a result, graduates frequently enter the job market with one set of competencies while employers are looking for another. Dmitry Sergienkov, CEO of hh.ru, explained: "Developers who did not graduate from a prestigious university but possess a high level of practical skills have a better chance of being hired by leading IT companies. Skills assessments provide one more signal that a candidate is a good match for a particular role." Those who successfully complete the assessments receive an official MinTsifry certificate through Gosuslugi, while their hh.ru résumé is automatically updated with a badge confirming their verified competency.
Employers Will Help Identify Skill Gaps
The new hh.ru pilot has already reached a number of universities, involving more than 10,000 students during its first month. Universities receive expert evaluations of student skills from hh.ru talent assessment professionals with hands-on experience in the technology industry. In addition, hh.ru will review more than 300 academic courses. That feedback will allow universities to adjust their educational programs to better reflect employer demand.
As hh.ru explains, the project's goal is to establish a continuous exchange of information between the labor market and universities. It creates a mechanism through which labor market requirements are collected and consistently fed back into the educational process through student assessments, curriculum reviews, teaching, and internship programs.
Around the world, hiring practices are gradually shifting away from diploma-based recruitment toward hiring based on verified skills. Common competency standards could strengthen the competitiveness of Russian professionals in international labor markets. The methodology could also be offered to universities across the CIS as a ready-made certification framework.
MinTsifry Closes the Feedback Loop
Russian universities began launching supplementary IT education programs for both engineering and humanities students in 2022 with the introduction of Tsifrovyye Kafedry (Digital Departments). The initiative expanded across dozens of universities, and by the end of its first year more than 83,000 students had completed comprehensive digital competency assessments.
By 2024, enrollment in the Digital Departments program had grown to 174,500 students. Over its first two years, more than 280,000 people completed additional IT training. By the 2025 academic year, universities had launched 653 educational programs, including 378 focused on information and communications technology (ICT), while the remainder served fields such as healthcare, construction, and transportation.
Last year, as noted above, the National IT Competency Verification System was introduced. MinTsifry then took the initiative a step further by launching free competency testing through Gosuslugi.
The new hh.ru project goes beyond simply measuring knowledge immediately after testing. It also generates recommendations for universities. In practice, it is no longer just a certification system – it has become a feedback mechanism for higher education itself.
Looking a Year Ahead
If education is evaluated by real-world skills rather than formal curricula, integrating labor market metrics into academia becomes the logical next step. That approach could eventually become the standard way of keeping educational programs aligned with the skills the IT sector actually needs.
Universities will use the results to update academic courses, while employers will rely on them to identify promising interns. That should bring academic training closer to the needs of industry. However, one important detail remains: the certificate is valid for only one year. In today's technology market, that is enough time for tools, platforms, and employer expectations to evolve, making renewed certification necessary.
