Infallibly, IT sector is evolving at a rapid pace with the advent of cutting-edge technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet-of-Things, Blockchain, etc. Such technologies have automated countless business operations transforming the traditional business landscape into modern. IT companies now realizing the need for educated, dynamic, and young IT talents who can get the firm hold of every nut and bolt of industry requirements and accordingly cater to them.
For businesses, acquisition of new clients epitomizes the need for ingenious recruitment. As the client base expands with one step, the urge for talent recruitment doubles up to pacify the business growth. However, IT staffing trends are also changing making it important for both companies and jobseekers to stay aligned with. Companies no longer intend to entertain the long-term employees who are unable to upgrade their skill sets in the volatile environment. What skills and expertise an employee possesses might become outdated with ultramodern developments. This has given rise to increasing demand for contract-based jobs.
Emerging Trends in IT Staffing
Social Networking for Staffing
Over the years, it has been observed that a majority of the businesses rely on their existing clients and employees for revenue generation. As tapping on potential job seekers and expanding the client base is a tough job, businesses prioritize it less in their business growth strategy. Instead, they choose to train the existing employees for advanced roles regardless of the investments it would call for. As previously discussed, the proficiency or expertise of existing workforce necessary for handling novice and innovative IT projects may become obsolete.
Ideally, SMBs & MSMEs must focus on recruiting the skilled candidates capable of managing the innovative projects, expanding the client base and eventually boosting the business growth. For this, they must work hard on brand-building and promotion to ensure the greater visibility for both clients and the job seekers in the niche market. Social media and professional platforms are proven effective tools for brand management and market the vacancies. Extensive networking online is the new trend in IT staffing industry. Not only it obtains the leads but also lures the young and talented professionals for taking up the new jobs.
Flexible-Staffing to Meet Changing Labor Needs
We see many business firms juggling up with recruiting and terminating the full-time employees either because they are unable to contribute significantly to generating revenue or the freelance (or temporary) staff is more efficient in delivering the work under the limited budget. Recruiting full-time employees is, no doubt, expensive for every organization. But, the expenses are truly paid off when the new talent (be it full-time or temporary) leads the business innovation and uplifts the growth of the company as a whole. Since the world runs on uncertainty and ideating before which employee would be a misfit is impractical, the staffing companies are embracing flexible-staffing model with open hands. Flexible staffing enables the organizations to hire the candidates on the basis of workloads and specific projects which can be done by subject matter experts. It saves the company both time and costs of initiating the recruitment process.
Recruiting Passive Candidates
As a matter of fact, the best of IT talents are employed in the industry. While there are innumerable employed people who are satisfied with their jobs, the majority of them would not miss the new and profitable opportunities. Such candidates are called passive candidates who may not be actively searching for new avenues, but if sought after, can avail the offer. Hiring passive candidates with exciting compensation packages encourages them to work more dedicatedly for the companies and reap the benefits. Unluckily, the thriving IT firms lack sufficient time to skim through the pool of talent and spot the passive candidates. Also, LinkedIn reports that only 22% of businesses reach the passive candidates with job offers. However, passive staffing is steadily becoming the first choice for many businesses as the experienced job seekers need lesser time and efforts to get trained while working with a new firm.
Challenges in IT staffing to overcome
Lack of Skilled and Loyal Candidates
One of the biggest challenges that IT industry faces is the inadequate staffing and disloyalty of skilled resources. A lot of times, despite hiring more and more resources the output produced are disappointing for the companies. The ones who are not fit for the job role in terms of skills and expertise are kicked off by the companies themselves. And those who are accomplished in work are often found unable to stick to the company for a definite period of time and hence abandon the company. Acuteness and disloyalty of skilled workforce often become the primary reasons for companies hiring again and again for the same job positions.
Employee Retention Strategies
A CareerBuilder study & Sologig.com study highlighted the fact that nearly 34% of the total hiring firms are concerned with small team size and retention of existing employees. Also, they fear of being used as a stepping stone by the existing employees to grab the better career opportunities. This not only reduces the team size but also disrupts work balance and growth of the organization. Thus, companies must devise actionable and effective employee retention strategies to negate the probable losses.
Changing Role of HR as a Marketer
The upshots of rising social media popularity, IT companies are creating a competitive environment to get hands on the tech-savvy candidates. Instead of posting jobs on portals, recruiters have to master marketing and advertising skills to lure the qualified and experienced candidates. They should know how to reach the target candidates, engage with them and market their vacancies.
Standing Distinct and High in the Market
Long past the days when recruiters used to have a myriad of candidates CVs and they had to choose one from many. Now, the privilege has been shifted to well-informed candidates. Being young, talented and experienced, the candidates have excellent job offers in hand. Calling it a candidate-driven market, companies must strive to emerge as the distinctive firm where the candidates will want to work. For this, HR teams must focus on work culture, work space, and the workload.
Apart from this, the companies are facing various internal challenges. Not many businesses have budgets for utilizing the new technologies for effective recruitment. Making data-driven recruitment strategies require time, but data intelligence and analytics have a shortage in the market. Also, there is a lack of educated and proficient IT candidates who can fit in the organizations and meet their expectations.
The IT industry holds uncountable opportunities for both job seekers and the staffing firms. The expectations, expertise, and experience that both parties require should match suitably for mutual growth. Where companies should identify and hire the potential candidates, the candidates should also stay loyal to the company by being a good resource. Companies should come up with retaining strategies by creating a cordial work environment, whereas, employees should focus and contribute significantly to the companies’ growth.
About the Author: Mr. Abhishek Agarwal has more than 17-years of experience in IT services industry and has spent a majority of his efforts building delivery centers across the Americas, Europe, India and APAC.
