Get Your Resume Ready: IT Jobs Aplenty
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No sooner had I published my column yesterday about soaring IT employment in June when I received a news release from CareerBuilder.com with welcome news for anyone seeking an IT position in coming months. According to the job-finding site, 35 percent of IT employers are planning to boost their ranks of full-time employees between now and December. The closest any other industry came was healthcare, at 26 percent, and sales (excluding IT), at 25.9 percent. Not surprisingly, people will keep getting sick, and to quote one of my favorite songwriters, "There's still something we can sell." CareerBuilder also reports that 45 percent of IT employers have open positions for which they cannot find qualified talent. It's that old skills-shortage problem again. And this comes on the same day the government was talking about a major bank bailout and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sounded more pessimistic about the economy than ever. So what's going on here? According to CareerBuilder CTO Eric Presley - I know, I did a double-take, too - explains it thusly: "The pervasiveness of and reliance upon technology continues to escalate, and the amount of graduates in IT is trailing behind the demand for their knowledge and expertise." Last week, I wrote a column arguing that education is fundamental to addressing the chronic skills shortage in IT. Yeah, I know, it's an obvious statement that tends to induce a fair number of sneers. Sneer if you must, but if we had done a better job all along in this regard, the problem wouldn't be as bad. The industry needs to do more to work with high schools and colleges to prepare students for tech positions. When you have employers unable to fill positions with qualified candidates while the overall economy is tanking, I'd say that's pretty clear proof we are doing a poor job of education in this country. The CareerBuilder.com Midyear Employment Forecast, conducted from May 22 through June 13, also reported that 31 percent of IT employers are hanging on to workers who "may not be performing at optimal levels to keep desks occupied." Some employers are finding they have to boost salaries to attract on-demand employees, which of course is good for qualified jobseekers. About 24 percent of IT hiring managers say the average salary will increase 5 percent or more in the second half of 2008 compared to the first half. |
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Comments (2)
Thank you for posting this article. I do have to disagree with the lack of talent. I have worked in IT management for over 10 years. What I've seen time and again are job descriptions that have thrown everything and the kitchen sink into the description, which is usually impossible to find candidates with that breadth of experience and for not a comparable pay. Recruiters look for job title and regional pay scales. But they don't have the data on what the extra compensation would be when you add in all of the extras that are required. No wonder these companies can't fill these positions. The way they've designed their organization and expectations need to be reassessed. Additionally, so many technology managers are better technologists than managers. And, typically, that's how they focus their time.
Adding to the problem are the number of recruiters out there who are untrained and inexperienced in both working with the business to better define positions, then how to post or advertise those positions, then identify good candidates by asking the right questions, not just filtering resumes with the right buzz words. These folks depend too much on buzz words than building their knowledge on how to best identify the right candidates. So many of these recruiters don't have working technology backgrounds.
The recruiting business needs to be revamped by wrapping with corporate HR and Marketing teams to be more effective in advertising candidate opportunities, selling to the right candidates, then closing the deal by motivating these teams with internal sales incentives. After all, the old addage of if a position is open, then there must be a need. And, as long as that position isn't filled, work isn't being accomplished and the postion just may not be necessary.
Thank you for your thoughts.
Posted by BizDoc | July 21, 2008 11:02 AM
I find it strange that many of the blogs over at Tech Republic seem to quote firms like Challenger and Grey stating that IT jobs will shrink in 2009.
I don't know how many times this trade rag(Channel Insider) has beat the drum of an IT Pro shortage over the years,but the truth is ,it is not but a red herring.
Just more spin fodder for the H1B'ers and out sourcers to say "See we told you so!".
Posted by pgm | July 26, 2008 8:44 PM