In April Autodesk announced a programme for engineers and architects that had lost their jobs in the current financial crisis. In essence, people who were unfortunate to qualify were entitled to free software and on-line training for 13 months, together with a possibility of achieving a professional accreditation.
Autodesk has just announced that companies which hire people who have been through the Assistance Programme will be entitled to get a discount of 40% on new commercial licenses of AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit Architecture and AutoCAD Civil3D. Should an individual decide to go freelance the same discount applies to trade up to a full commercial license.
The company has expanded the software available on the programme to include AutoCAD Electrical, AutoCAD Mechanical Alias Design and Alias Surface, together with 90 day licenses of 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya.
Access to the Auodesk University web site has also been added, which has over 1,000 online session videos and 400 presentations, together with all the e-learning tools that are available to Autodesk Subscribers.
Since its launch Autodesk has recruited 74 partners offering training, together with 4,700 registrations and over 5,700 product downloads.
Autodesk is also getting proactive by organising local events, inviting recruiting firms and engineers and architects seeking employment to its facilities for ‘meet and greet’ events. The image here is from an networking event the company put together at its San Francisco customer product gallery at One Market. Representatives from local firms actively recruiting, together with employment firms such as Monster.com, Linkedin and Aerotek were present. Ideate and Ketiv co-hosted the evening. We understand more networking events will follow.
