DXC Technology: creating a different pathway for tech roles in Australia

The business challenge 

Australia’s tech workforce relies heavily on graduate recruitment, despite many entry-level digital roles not requiring a degree. This narrows the talent pool at a time of ongoing skills shortages and leaves capable young people locked out of stable work. DXC joined the Employer Innovation Lab in June 2025 to explore ways of attracting young people at risk of exclusion into tech careers – particularly those without university degrees.

Traditional recruitment pipelines were limiting who could enter the business and the team wanted to build upon their existing practise with the DXC Dandelion Program framework to explore direct recruitment of participants. The aim was to create change inside DXC’s own systems, roles, coaching and management practices, alongside providing pathways via expert, specialist supported employment and hiring services for more specific cohorts.

For this pilot, DXC intentionally brought together a diverse internal team to design and launch the work. This included young employees, who had joined through graduate pathways, giving them direct insight into current labour market conditions and the experiences of their peers without degrees.

DXC entered the pilot with a strong advantage. Through the DXC Dandelion Program, an award-winning initiative now in its 10^th year, the organisation had already shown that with the right support, management capability, and role design, people who are often excluded can succeed in tech roles. The Employer Innovation Lab extended this logic to early-career pathways, applying the same discipline to young people facing obstacles in the labour market.

As part of the Employer Innovation Lab, DXC’s team had the chance to meet with young people from Western Sydney (‘youth consultants’) who were struggling to get access to good quality jobs. “A big driver was interviewing the youth consultants,” mentions one of the DXC younger team members.  “As the designer of the project and program, you come in with perceptions. Interviewing young consultants in the Lab, breaks those down and helps you understand where you’re wrong with some ideas”.

Through SVA’s Employer Innovation Lab, we pressure-tested our assumptions about early-career tech hiring and identified where our processes can exclude capable young people without degrees. Hearing directly from the youth consultants sharpened our focus on practical changes at DXC—clearer role design and more structured onboarding. Building on what we’ve learned through the DXC Dandelion Program, we can create credible pathways into real roles and strengthen our teams.” Nav Garcha • DXC Enterprise IT APJ Lead

Building a pilot for systems change

The idea was designed around recruiting four to six young people together as an intact team. This would allow participants to support one another during the learning journey, while being coached in DXC’s ways of working from day one. The candidates would be placed into real roles within the business with the support of community partners.

DXC consulted with business units to select suitable roles in areas where there were new hires happening at lower skill levels. Ultimately, success would depend on launching the pilot in an area of the business with the capacity, leadership and support structures to make the model sustainable and credible for adoption across other parts of the organisation.

The Service Desk team at DXC Technology in Adelaide was selected as the best place to pilot. Once this occurred the team:

• identified suitable roles, including service desk analysts, field services, trainee case managers, and test analysts
• rewrote job descriptions to improve clarity and accessibility
• worked with community providers to source and support candidates, on a case-by-case basis
• introduced structured onboarding, including buddy systems and peer learning
• implemented a technical training plan and certification roadmap
• delivered onboarding with a focus on belonging and confidence and made unspoken workplace expectations explicit
• assigned coaches and conducted early career conversations – focussed on building adaptive skills and the capacity for self-advocacy and self-determination over time
• used flexible, case-by-case engagement with support partners.

Much of this built on existing frameworks from the DXC Dandelion Program, strengthening consistency across the business.

We saw the benefit down the path and applied the same approach we use in the business, but with the extra layer we do for the DXC Dandelion Program on making sure we get the right fit for the individual before they come into the program” Ian Pereira • DXC Social Impact Practice Lead

South Australia was a new region for the Lab, so SVA moved quickly to build relationships with local employment service providers. This led to a series of roundtables where DXC met with providers to agree the recruitment approach. Jobs Statewide and Workskill Australia then worked with their caseloads to identify young people who would be interested in the roles at DXC.

Those young people were invited to attend an open day, and successful candidates were offered positions.

By September, five young people had commenced in service desk roles – in a faster turnaround than usual, as recruitment processes typically take around three months. There were no dropouts and by the end of December, all participants while in different points of their professional journeys, were thriving.

Overall, the pilot demonstrated that with the right support, young people without degrees could succeed in tech roles and bring fresh energy to the business, but it is also delivering benefits beyond this cohort: engagement increased across teams involved in the pilot; it also strengthened DXC’s capability to assess its teams internally, refine onboarding, identify gaps and support managers effectively.

Many accommodations, informed by earlier work on the DXC Dandelion program, are now being established as standard practice, and workforce planning is clearer and more intentional.

I liked how structured the Lab was. They helped us think about problems we might face and how to solve them beforehand – that meant we could plan the pilot better.” Minol Jayalath • DXC Technical Consultant

What’s next

DXC intends to continue and expand this work over the next 12 months, harnessing the pilot’s momentum and looking to launch the pilot across the same business area or even explore other service lines depending on available demand.

Key takeaways for employers