Companies revamp hiring strategies for key technology positions

Recent IT job studies continue to paint a tight labor market for certain high-demand jobs such as IT security pros, data scientists and software developers. But just how much are organizations struggling to find the key IT talent they need?

Information Management put that question to the test, asking members of the Society for Information Management (SIM) for their thoughts on their organization's experience in hiring within key areas, if they find there to be a significant supply-and-demand gap for any specific job titles, and if so what that is doing to corporate growth or project management efforts. Here are their responses:

Mission, culture and engagement are key to recruiting

“At ECMC Group, we focus on helping students succeed in the higher education space. We are continuously looking for creative, innovative developers and software engineers to meet our ever-evolving business needs. With locations in tight markets like Northern California and Minneapolis, we are competing with start-ups and big companies alike for talent. This is where the intangibles of company mission, culture and engagement – offerings that are incredibly important to our organization - become so very important to candidates and help us differentiate ourselves with the labor pool.”

- Frederick Peguero, vice president of information technology, Enterprise Business Solutions, ECMC Group

Growing dependence on contract workers

“We are seeing many of our clients look to using on-demand freelancer and gig workforce providers to widen the net for this talent. Technology talent is the ‘sweet spot’ for these gig workforce platforms. Some of your best technology talent can only be found in the independent consultant community.”

- Terri Gallagher, president and CEO, Gallagher and Consultants

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Too many candidates embellish their skill inventory

“HR uses keywords to select resumes, so savvy candidates often list all the hottest skills. However, imposter candidates fail to expand on the details related to those in-demand skills. To enable HR to make more intelligent choices we recommend that job descriptions go beyond just listing a skill, like ‘data scientist,’ but actually list expected duties and outcomes, such as ‘interpret data, statistical analysis, develop data models and algorithms, etc.’

- Mikhail Papovsky, president and founder, Abraic, Inc.

Shortage of engineers and designers impacts providers too

“Demand for engineers and designers that have high quality experience building digital products is at an all-time high. As a software development and design agency, this is great because it means we too are in demand! But it also means we need to shift our marketing efforts more towards recruiting than sales so that we can meet that demand. The shortage of qualified candidates is our only impediment to more dramatic growth.”

- Nick Kishfy, chief executive officer, MojoTech

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