PeerTown

Scott Nevins

A level-set is required here.  Hiring for technology-skills is increasing in difficulty and in cost. We’re all feeling it: large and small companies, start-ups and multi-generational businesses, and tech-forward and tech-catch up industries alike.

The difficulties our Chief Tech Officers and Heads of TA commiserate on include skill-set misalignment, unavailability of talent, lacking culture fit, and increased competition. The correlated costs are in terms of practical hiring:more recruiters, more staffing agencies, and more branded outreach required to meet current headcount demands. Moreover, “cost”should be applied beyond our HR budgets. There’s a cost impact to how our companies function. Delays in digitalization, pauses in product development, and deferment to competition in the market are all consequences of our inability to hire in this space.

Why is this happening? There are multiple reasons - some are listed here: 

1. The market for technology talent has changed. Covid-19 was either a catalyst or accelerator for the digitalization of many organizations - influencing their ways of working and the products they produce (online banking, retail delivery, manufacturing automation – even hybrid-working strategies are all examples).  The result is a significant increase in organizations needing talent who can help businesses modernize. 

2. Unemployment in the tech space continues to be extremely low – and this isn’t Covid’s fault.  The BLS had unemployment at 1.3 percent in May of 2019.  We’re still hovering at 2 percent and lower.

3. There isn’t enough talent to support the overall demand.Half-way through 2021, the number of job openings in high-skilled jobs werealmost 2 million, compared to800K unemployed.

4. Technologist aren’t willing to respond to non-stop outreach- nagging - by recruiters they don’t know, for organizations they don’t care about.

5. TA functions have been built around Just-In-Time recruiting, relegating candidate relationships to the occasional executive recruiting function (and for only the most senior positions).

"Building out a longer-term solution will produce qualified and engaged high-skilled talent ready to align their career path with your organization’s opportunity"

How do we get out of the mode of spending more, for fewer hires in this new talent marketplace?  The answer is that we need to change.  We need to change how we engage with talent – even beyond the candidate experience many of us require our recruiters to own. We need to engage authentically and transparently. And we need to be patient. Instant gratification is no longer going to work to meet our hiring needs.Recommendationsinclude:

1. Thoughtfully and purposefully leverage the relationships our employees have with their peers – beyond traditional referral programs.You can use these connections to support theidentification of passive candidates – but it will require a change in how your employee makes their suggestion – moving away from the happenstance relationship.LinkedIn in a recent survey showed the benefit of this strategy:  talent is 46 percent more likely to accept an email outreach when they are connected to your employees.

2. Develop relationships by consistently engaging with high-skilled/tech talent. However, this engagement cannot be one sided; you need this talent to become familiar with your business to reduce the risk inherent in moving from a stable job. It takes more than a few 30-minute interviews to do so.

3. Be patient.  Long-term pipeline building can easily fail if you rush to convert a passive non-job seeker into an applicant.If the high-skilled individual doesn’t feel the authenticity in developing a relationship, it will impact your overall success in the hiring process.

We all know and feel the difficulty in recruiting for today’s high-skilled tech talent. Building out a longer-term solution will produce qualified and engaged high-skilled talent ready to align their career path with your organization’s opportunity. Not every pipelined talent will become an eventual hire, but, by formalizing and sticking to an engagement solution, you will see results that reduce your need for both reactive and agency supported recruitment.