Technology recruitment in a candidate-short market

The technology industry is full of niche skills due to its ever evolving and innovative nature.

So, finding the right talent for big data engineering, data science, and development operation roles can present a huge challenge for organisations.

The hiring challenges

Hiring for in-demand skills can affect the recruitment strategy for companies, if they don’t accommodate for the fact that they may struggle to hire a permanent team in this space. It means their strategy may need to shift towards interim hires, but this brings a new problem. Having internal knowledge and capability, versus the risk of losing that knowledge, when your contractor leaves. 

In addition to this approach being more costly, despite its flexibility (from an employer’s perspective), your strategy may require near-shoring or off-shoring to secure cheaper resources. Near-shoring or off-shoring will bring challenges around language barriers and cultural differences found within global teams. Cheaper skills often also mean low calibration, or a reliance on third parties for certain skills. Again, this would come with the cost and level of expertise issues found when hiring a contractor. 

There are always workarounds which have their own pitfalls, and the key to it is about finding the right approach that doesn’t involve too much compromise. One that ultimately allows you to deliver on your strategic goals. There are some people that see the current technology sector as just a hub for millennials and if as forecasted, millennials form 50% of the global workforce by 2020, then organisations need to find new ways to attract them. Identifying the type of top talent that will be the cornerstone of your business, needs to be complemented with the knowledge of where to find them. 

There seems to be a regional employment pattern with London hires vs other regions across UK. The labour market in London always appears to be more vibrant, which leads to the assumption of more ‘choice’ from a candidate’s perspective. This has attracted tech start-ups, and the big organisations have ensured that they have a footprint in the capital. Although, this doesn’t mean that all the tech jobs are to be found in just once place – the Northern Powerhouse Rail could be the key to tech job growth in the North. Regardless of where the prime cluster of jobs are, being positioned as an employer of choice is extremely important in capturing the attention of talent within such a slim candidate market, particularly as these professionals have their ‘pick of the bunch’.

The importance of upskilling

Hiring top talent into your business is only part of the puzzle. Tech moves fast, which means coding skills, hardware, and software knowledge needs to be updated regularly. Over 60% of new candidates cite the lack of development as a key driver when looking for a new role. Simply put, there are only a small number of companies that are completely switched on when it comes to upskilling their employee base. 

The upskilling process should be proactive and not reactive, which is why a dedicated HR-run programme should be put in place with regular feedback from employees constantly evolving the learning and development agenda. Alternatively, another good example of proactive upskilling is when companies dedicate 10-20% of their schedule to the learning and developing experience of trying out new coding languages and systems as part of their commitment to upskilling staff.

Although this can be applied to all types of learning, there must be a business need and shouldn’t detract from the role of the individual in question. However, it is a fantastic way to be proactive and support professional development – be it four hours a week learning how to code in Python, or two hours every other day to practice public speaking and presentations. In short, whatever makes the individual feel like their employer takes their development seriously, will drive employee engagement, productivity, and ultimately help with retention.

Niche areas of technology that are set to grow

It is expected that AI and robotics will continue to develop and become more integrated with human workers. This will require a new type of skill set for existing employees and as it stands for most organisations, the terms still need to be demystified. 

Professionals still need to understand how these skills can be applied within an enterprise environment and then the benefits of AI can then be fully realised; because exponential technologies will help us create a better future.

If you are interested in hiring top professionals in the technology sector, please get in touch and one of our consultants will call you back. Or, alternatively, please submit a job spec.

Alan Joesbury
Managing Consultant, Business Intelligence & Data
Michael Page Technology