In a rapidly evolving digital world, the acquisition of technical talent has become one of the decisive factors impacting the success of businesses. Organisations have to invest in innovative solutions and emerging technologies such as big data, AI or blockchain if they want to remain competitive.
Demand for tech talent is perpetually rising and has created scarcity and thus fierce competition for top IT professionals. This imbalance could be (somewhat) mitigated by more effective technical hiring processes; however, the opposite tends to hold true for and now hiring remains a string of complex processes.
Recruiters need to be able to identify appropriate candidates and compete for them on a global scale, candidate’s credentials need to be accurately validated and not only do organisations have to assess the competence levels of candidates, but also identify which competencies they want to key in on.
Besides having the required and often scarce skills, developers and engineers need to be able to continuously adapt to the permanent state of evolution of the technologies they work with. Whether one views technical hiring from the perspective of an employer or a job seeker, there are many challenges.
Finding talent
In a global digitised marketplace, competition for technical expertise is fierce. The sourcing of the best and the brightest candidates is a primary challenge. Gartner’s emerging risk 2018 report, for example, identifies the global shortage in technical talent as one of the leading risk factors for organisations. In fields such as data science, big data, cybersecurity, DevOps, blockchain and AI, competent talent is already hard to find, and these fields are still developing.
Whether they are talents hired straight out of the classroom or experienced professionals changing jobs, companies are trying to hire the same people. This has led to technical talent receiving a high volume of offers, turning the technical hiring market into a candidate driven one. This is putting the pressure to stick out from the competition on the hiring companies, which need to ensure that their advertisements catch the attention of the right people. Tech talent enjoys the luxury of being selective and look for the job that they really want, and companies need to play into this. Besides talent that is actively looking for jobs, an even harder group to reach are passive candidates, who are professionals that already have a job but are keeping their eyes open should a better chance come along. These are often the most highly skilled and sought after candidates.
New generations, new expectations
Millennials and generation z have different employment expectations than incumbent generations comprising the core of many organisations.
These include:
- Meaningful work;
- real challenges;
- opportunities for self-development;
- the ability to work remotely;
- Value alignment.
Younger professionals want more than just the prospect of a life coding, are (generally) no longer interested in companies with a conservative image, are looking for inclusive workplaces where they are listened to and place a larger emphasis on life beyond work, illustrated by the shift towards remote work. Even though remote work isn’t without its challenges, it is possible for many technical jobs and also allows organisations to expand their pool of potential candidates.
The traditional 9–5 set up is becoming less of a default by the day, and younger workers are more used to fluid workflows, working from contract to contract and project to project. This shift in expectations is ever increasing as demographics continue to change and hence, organisations need to respond in order to attract the best technical talent from these digitally native generations.
Recruiting
With skilled developers and engineers highly sought, recruiters are becoming more creative in their sourcing and are looking beyond national borders. Digital networking platforms have become an integral part of the hiring process; however, they haven’t quite led to a categorical shift toward greater efficiency in technical hiring.
Technical hiring is either outsourced to third parties such as IT recruiting agencies or conducted by internal HR departments; however, it is becoming progressively difficult for third parties to competently assess candidates as jobs are new, increasingly complex and specialised.
Job descriptions are written for the candidates, not for the recruitment parties, and recruiters often lack the knowledge to fully comprehend all the details of these job descriptions. Recruiters need to understand what they are specifically looking for. Interaction between the technical team of an organisation and the recruiter, either internal and external, is required, yet often still lacking or incomplete.
Additionally, due to the rapid growth in new technology fields, job titles have become less standardised. A variety of creative job titles can actually describe the same role, and recruiters need to be able to filter through these and come up with an effective search term strategy — many good candidates fall through the cracks due to improper sorting.
Certifying credentials
Employing online platforms (Indeed, for example) leads to a lot of applications, but only a few candidates will be right for the job. After the sourcing process, the credentials of the candidates have to be verified. This time-consuming process is generally done by HR specialists, and filters out the candidates based on their formal documentation regarding certificates and diplomas, work experience, references and said skills.
The verification process has to be separate from sourcing as third-party recruiters, and online recruitment platforms generally are not efficient in this process or lack the capacity to evaluate the quality and seriousness of candidates. Given the ease with which digital documents and credentials can be fabricated, it is important for the screening process to be thorough. However, due to the digital nature of the globalised technical hiring market, the certification of credentials is cumbersome as there are no commonly accepted practices or trusted databases.
Ensuring competency
Assessing subject matter expertise is critical, and there are a large variety of software tools and solutions to aid with this. However, subject matter expertise is just a piece of the puzzle, as the perpetual shift in the technical requirements and evolution of technologies has to be taken into account when drafting a job description.
Before assessing a candidate that made it through the initial screening, an organisation needs to have their requirements very clearly defined. Whether it’s technical talent with domain experience, business acumen and fluency, adaptability, solid communication and interpersonal skills — there are many variables to consider. An essential criterion for finding the appropriate candidate (that is often overlooked) is the more personal side of technical hiring. Therefore it’s useful to have assessments of teamwork and communication skills and the like.
It is difficult to predict the technological challenges of tomorrow. Hence, it is important that organisations assess tech talent not only based on their skills but also on their adaptability and willingness to develop and be “future proof”. Assessing how a candidate’s skills have developed over the course of his or her career in generally indicative of this but hard to accurately measure.
Future-proofing
With technical hiring an imperative to the success of an organisation, it’s clear that the current hiring dynamics require a continual upgrade to streamline the acquisition of talent and be able to meet the growing demand. Even though the web has globalised the recruitment process, recruiters are facing increasing complexities in sourcing tech talent, and the validation of candidate credentials is still a rather analogue and time-consuming process.
Tools for candidate assessment are abundant; however, these solutions could be more efficiently integrated into the hiring process. Additionally, criteria for candidates are changing with the increasing uncertainty stemming from rapid technological, which needs to be reflected in assessments methods.
And all this assumes that recruiters and organisations manage to attract skilled candidates and hire them before they get snapped up by the competition. As organisations require tech talent to deal with the challenges of the future, so they themselves need to be future-proof in the process of finding valuable additions to their staff.
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