Tech Hiring Insider – Q1 2023

I’m regularly invited to attend webinars hosted by some of the biggest global names in the talent attraction business and this week I joined two presentations hosted by Linkedin and CWJobs who as part of Stepstone Group are owned by one of the worlds largest e-recruitment businesses.

Both organisations have a huge reach and user base so I’m always interested to hear the outcomes of their research as it helps us both devise strategies for accessing the talent and ensure we are giving accurate up to the minute advice to clients on how to position their roles and the likely hurdles they will need to overcome when hiring.

Across both webinars there was a lot of information, some of which I’d classify as absolutely must know for hirers. The Linkedin report “The Future of Recruiting 2023” is a global report based on interviews with global talent leaders, surveys of thousands of recruiting professionals and candidates, and analysis of millions of data points generated on LinkedIn. They break the report down by region and whilst it isn’t necessarily tech specific it is based on professional hiring so many of the lessons apply across sectors. The key Linkedin UK takeaways were:

• Assess current needs – review what skills employees have and whether this reflects what the company now needs.
• Candidates top priorities were levels of compensation and flexible working, by some distance. The cost of living crisis means that regardless of what people are saying in interview, money is probably their main driver along with the ability to work in a flexible way. The researchers said that people are still motivated by working environments and the roles still have to be interesting and provide exciting future career pathways but unless this is matched with salary and flex working hiring top tier candidates will remain very challenging. Money talks basically, no more than ever.
• Salary notwithstanding, the Linkedin report found that companies and recruiters vastly underestimated the importance of employee happiness when hiring. The ability to measure the happiness of existing employees and use this information as part of the hiring process is a good opportunity for hirers to increase their attractiveness to would be employees.
• As this period of economic uncertainty continues businesses are more likely to utilise the contractor market in 2023.
• A “skills first” approach will gain momentum. Skills first is the practice of valuing an employees skills rather than their educational or employer background, I think that this is a more US focused message where greater stock is placed on which University a person attended or the last company they worked for.

The CW/Total jobs presentation went into some more granular details that validated much of our experience and definitely worth sharing:

• Tech workers are approached for a new role on average 3.61 times a month
• The average tech workers salary has increased 27% in the last 12 months
• Salary is still the number one attention grabber for potential candidates, with men and women equally money driven (46% each)
• It takes about 6.5 weeks to fill a position in the IT and telecommunication sector, up from 4.8 in 2019
• The top response from employers to addressing hard-to-fill vacancies has been to upskill existing staff (47%), followed by raising pay (43%) and increasing the duties of existing staff (36%)
• More than 2 million tech vacancies were advertised over the last year
• 56% of digital leaders are expecting their technology headcounts to rise in 2023, and over half (52%) expect their technology budget to increase

Both Linkedin and CW offered the following actionable advice:

• Assess current needs – review what skills employees have and whether this reflects what the company now needs.
• Stand out against the competition – showcase the things that matter most to employees, including salary, benefits, and progression opportunities.
• Re-think the recruitment process – aim to offer fast track applications for the most suitable candidates.
• Balance hiring entry-level and experienced talent – new talent gives experienced workers more space to upskill, and experienced workers provide young hires with new insights and expertise.
• Build a more diverse and inclusive tech team – diverse tech teams offer different cultural perspectives and can inspire creativity and drive innovation.
• Select hiring partners based on effectiveness above cost

All reasonable points to consider and as you may imagine I’m in particular agreement with the last one.

If you’d like to discuss any specific hiring needs which are holding your organisation back from achieving your goals then please get in touch, we will have the solution.

Andy