4 IT Recruitment Challenges That Are Getting Worse in 2022
How hard was your last hire? If you’re like many business leaders right now, the entire proceedings brought their own tribulation. Many of the hiring challenges plaguing the market since the end of the Great Recession have only worsened since the pandemic started, frustrating decision makers who are all too eager to rebound from setbacks and regrow their revenue.
Which problems are only going to intensify? And how can you overcome them without spending a fortune on the solution? From our perspective, here are the IT recruitment challenges which will torment businesses the most this year and a few ideas on how to overcome them.
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1.) Runaway Inflation Prompting Greater Compensation
The cost of doing business is skyrocketing. Throughout every tier of the supply chain, prices have risen as corporations and manufacturers struggle to hire quality workers and coordinate their existing workforce during lockdowns. That says nothing of the adversity presented by limited access to raw materials from conflict zones (e.g. neon shortages impacting superconductor supplies due to the Russo-Ukrainian War) or remote rural locations (e.g. lumber shortages). Even businesses not directly impacted will feel their expenses rise as these shortages cascade through the market.
With consumers also feeling the added strain – inflation rose up by 8.5% in the last year and national rent is on the rise – there’s also greater likelihood that your current employees and any prospects will demand more in compensation to make ends meet. Since only 25% of employers willing to change salary budgets to stay apace of inflation, you can expect a heightened employee exodus throughout the business world. In fact, the 2022 Job Seeker Nation Report indicates that almost half of workers believe they can increase their earning power simply by switching jobs right now.
Organizations hoping to control their hiring costs are taking a strategic approach to permanent hiring. Business and tech leaders willing to evaluate their technical needs with a shrewd eye for full-time hires can pinpoint those positions they need in-house and offer salaries that are competitive enough to mesmerize them. All other projects can either be addressed by engaging temporary IT consultants or working with an IT consulting solutions partner.
2.) Low Tech Unemployment Resulting in Recruitment Fatigue
As of March, the tech unemployment rate had dipped down to 1.3%, one of the lowest since June 2019, suggesting candidates have a bargaining chip that most people, even in this frenzied market, envy. As a result, IT candidates are bombarded by messages from companies and recruiters eager to acquire their skills, so much so that many in the tech space ignore all but the most tenacious and customized outreach efforts. In practice, this means the tired and formulaic mass messages to candidates are null.
Personalized interactions are now table stakes. Unless you’re willing to connect with candidates on an authentic level, they won’t feel the need to give you the time of day. Often, that translates to building rapport with candidates in advance of their next job search.
Your next hire is less likely to fall through if you’re actively building a network. Most recruiters will tell you that only a handful of candidates are willing to respond to urgent searches within the last year. There are plenty of people who leave InMails unread and others who only respond with a no. When vetted and nurtured candidates are interviewing with companies, many technical recruiters cover their bases by still interviewing possible candidates, even if they only end up as part of the pipeline.
3.) Virtual Hiring Processes Fostering Candidate Fraud
For as long as there have been jobs to work, there have been people pretending they can do those jobs. However, the last few years have revolutionized the idea of faking it until you make it. An entire service industry has emboldened underqualified candidates to fudge their credentials and punch way above their weight class.
Dishonest candidates can obtain phony resumes, outsource their over-the-phone interview, and even acquire sham references at the click of a button. As the average applicant tracking system (ATS) implemented automation, crafty individuals figured out how to please the algorithm and shuffle unfit candidates through the process.
As a result, more organizations have to learn how to identify fake candidates in recruitment – especially if they’re hiring for startups or cybersecurity positions where their demand is high and failure can be more catastrophic. There are a number of telltale signs for fake candidates throughout the process – whether it’s an eerily familiar LinkedIn profile or “technical difficulties” that prevent candidates from showing their faces during video interviews.
More than ever, hiring leaders need to condition themselves to spot deception at every phase of the process or risk making more bad hires. When you know the signs and spot them, it’s easier to avoid going down those rabbit holes and wasting time. Plus, rapid background checking services can eliminate any doubt, though the wrong partner can result in pulling the trigger too slowly in your hiring standoff with the competition.
4.) Adaptation to Remote Work
The way people worked over the course of the pandemic created an endemic shift in mindset for the tech sector. A recent New York Times article characterized the struggle of the current IT market “Highly skilled tech workers, for the most part, are not leaving the workplace […] they are, however, leaving the workspace, in droves.” As it so happens, 64% of the workforce vows to quit if they are asked to return to the office full-time.
Work-from-home-loving candidates aren’t the only challenge in this instance. There are numerous businesses from states like California and New York which are enthusiastically hiring remote candidates from more cost-effective locales like Houston and Omaha. They can acquire top talent for less than someone in their local market, while encouraging Midwestern and Southern candidates to enjoy a more affordable cost of living. It’s win-win for those organizations while regional companies struggle to hire.
As a result, organizations from the Midwest to the Southwest need to treat job flexibility as an imperative. Whether the candidates want fully remote work or a hybrid option, it behooves organizations to attune themselves to what candidates want, having open conversations during the hiring process to figure out the best way to work with their preferences. Staying on your high horse and demanding a total return to office will kill your prospects on the market.
Going It Alone Doesn’t Work
Even these obstacles are only a sample size of the challenges going on. Each industry, region, and business will have specific challenges stacked on top of these mostly universal hurdles. We’re at a point of no return for leaders or hiring managers handling the bulk of these responsibilities alone.
Whether you are using your employees to make referrals or outsourcing parts or all your hiring to an IT consulting and staffing partner, you need to be willing to lean upon others to make quick hires with reliable people. Though we don’t always know what the future will bring, we can assure you that IT hiring will always be easier when your relationships do the work for you.
Are you looking to overcome these and other IT recruitment challenges? Reach out to a member of the iSphere team to simplify your job search.
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