According to Mbula Schoen, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, the demand for tech talent continues to outnumber the supply. Schoen discussed what CIOs can do to attract and retain tech talent in a recent Q&A session.
“Contrary to what we’re seeing in the headlines, many of those being impacted by layoffs are in business functions, rather than tech roles,” Schoen when asked if all of the layoffs in Big Tech mean the talent crunch is over. “Additionally, there are increasingly opportunities for IT jobs outside traditional tech companies, so it’s important to look beyond just the tech provider community to truly grasp the state of the tech talent crunch.”
Schoen goes on to say that tech leaders in charge of bolstering development through digitalization should look beyond the noise of headline-grabbing layoffs to see market signals. She emphasized how critical the IT skills shortage is, and how CIOs are losing talented employees faster than they can hire them. However, in critical function areas such as data science, software engineering, and cybersecurity, talent supply remains as tight or tighter than ever.
She then urged CIOs to take action to acquire top IT talent strategically, rather than stalling in response to market noise. She went on to say that CIOs must be more deliberate in implementing proven practices that help them attract top talent and quickly fill open positions. In her own words, “CIOs should cast their nets wide to tap into a large pool of passive IT candidates. Many IT hiring plans are designed to target active job seekers rather than passive ones, leaving an untapped opportunity to increase the quality and quantity of IT candidates.”
She also encouraged CIOs to acquire skills not available in the IT labor market by identifying and training laid-off workers in adjacent tech categories. She recommends that they work with recruiting functions to modify job posting requirements to include desirable adjacent skills for open roles, as well as revamping their employee value propositions (EVP) for tech talent.
The sources for this piece include an article in Gartner.