Today, the most challenging aspect of the IT-hiring process is to find qualified and skilled candidates with experience in enterprise solutions and business domain knowledge, according to a recently released study titled 2008 IT Hiring Trends conducted by Veritude, a staffing, Recruitment-process Outsourcing (RPO), managed services and consulting services provider. Seventy three percent of the respondents to the study supported the statement. And, 53 percent of such respondents said that “finding qualified candidates” is the topmost challenge they face in hiring techies while only 11 percent said that they do not face any challenges.
“In order to be competitive, it is critical that companies overcome the IT-hiring challenges that our research has uncovered,” Kate Donovan, SVP, Veritude. “In working with our clients to place IT professionals, we have found that cultural fit and flexible work conditions are often key tipping points to attracting and retaining the right candidates and becoming the employer of choice.”
“So far in 2008 we continue to have high demand for IT positions across — especially for business-process skills. Those candidates that have a hybrid of skills, and can contribute at a strategic level are coveted by employers,” said one of the respondents, Scott Duhamel, VP, Global Staffing, Boston Scientific Group.
Unlike the prevailing talk over the declining domestic IT jobs in the U.S., the research findings of Veritude’s research reveal that technologists in the country with specific skills are in high demand. And, the talent pool is quite limited.
More than half (53 percent) of the respondents to the study expect an increase in the number of IT staffers in 2008, while 43 percent anticipate their IT staffing will remain steady. In addition, very few respondents (only 4 percent) expect their IT-staffing requirements to decrease.
“Of those who anticipated increase in their IT staff, 77 percent will be making permanent hires. At the same time, demand for contract or temporary workers is still significant at 45 percent. Only 27 percent will be increasing temp-to-perm staff,” finds the research.
Due to the rising demand for IT staffers and the lack of qualified workers, many of the U.S.-based companies are set to outsource their staff hiring processes to third-party vendors. Forty percent of the companies said they consider staffing providers for such functions. Many such companies (38 percent) believe that they lack in-house expertise of recruiting IT staff, followed by the ones, which would prefer to outsource such functions in order to control costs (23 percent), to manage changing workforce demand (8 percent), to allow HR to focus on more strategic initiatives (4 percent).
In 2008 many companies would prefer to outsource their IT staffing, with most looking for steady growth through permanent hires. Thus, RPO in the U.S. is set to take off. However, the trend of offshore recruitment services is yet to catch on.
