For many years, the demand for IT professionals has been so high that it created an entire job market in this industry. IT job offerings still come with high rewards, and candidates often expect extremely favorable employment conditions. However, the overall economic uncertainty in the world, coupled with mass layoffs in the technology sector, has caused IT executives and company leaders to slow down hiring.
Layoffs at technology giants such as Accenture, Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet have resulted in approximately 170,000 workers losing their jobs in the first quarter, according to Layoffs.fyi. The layoffs in major technology companies have harmed the overall hiring landscape.
The IT job market and opportunities for IT professionals are becoming more limited but remain attractive for experienced specialists. Additionally, some roles are being automated and eliminated. The development of AI is narrowing the list of positions available for humans. This situation requires finding alternative approaches and principles in IT hiring.
Skills and Qualifications
Traditional role-based hiring involves verifying candidate’s education, qualifications, and experience. Skill-based hiring is an approach that assesses specific competencies and goes beyond job titles to focus on candidate’s skills that can be applied to the position.
What problems does this approach solve?
- Not all IT professionals have the required skills. The IT industry is rapidly evolving, so the best employees must continually learn and enhance their skills. Many lack relevant experience or knowledge of additional programming languages, and skill-based hiring addresses many of these issues.
- A so-called skill gap — between what the job demands and the candidates’ experience. For example, there is currently a shortage of graduates in traditional IT fields to fill 700,000 cybersecurity vacancies in the United States government. They are not as specialized while they are still learning.
- Some experts believe there is not a skills gap but an opportunity gap. Underrepresented groups face barriers to obtaining certain degrees, often lack access to professional networks, and encounter conscious and unconscious prejudice during the hiring process. However, hiring based on skills and competencies can uncover hidden talents and help fix the opportunity gap problem.
- There is an increasing focus on the skills of the future. While knowledge and technical skills can be acquired relatively easily nowadays, even highly skilled and experienced programmers often struggle with soft skills such as communication, creativity, or time management. These skills are highly valuable in IT.
- Companies can fasten the hiring process by reducing the time spent searching for the perfect candidate. Restructuring education and experience requirements creates a broader talent pool and a more timely process with a larger applicant pool.
Skills-based or competency-based hiring is a more flexible and inclusive approach that can significantly improve IT recruitment.
How to Enact Skill-Based Hiring in a Company?
First and foremost, you need a competency matrix to understand the skills that are truly important for each position within the company.
Artificial Intelligence and relevant software solutions and platforms can assist in this process by identifying candidates with the necessary skills and potential to fill the required roles.
We will look into the example of the DecisionWanted platform, specifically designed for skill-based recruitment.
For instance, in project management, the skill of creating presentations is quite important as it is part of the reporting. However, if you are a tester, this skill may not be as crucial.
The AI in the DecisionWanted system automatically analyzes the match between job vacancies and candidate profiles and provides recommendations. It considers the importance of skills, the level of experience, and dozens of other parameters.
The algorithms verify the competency matrix for relevance to the candidate’s or employer’s requirements. Upon receiving feedback on a job vacancy, the candidate and recruiter immediately receive an automated report on the candidate’s suitability for the requirements.
On this platform, you can select a job vacancy and see if your skills meet its requirements. If you are a recruiter you will receive a detailed report on the suitability of the available candidates right after posting a job vacancy.
In the modern world, employees are valued and rewarded for their skills and how they apply them, rather than their job titles, positions, or educational degrees. This trend is gaining popularity, and embracing it timely will be a significant advantage in this market.
You can sign up on DecisionWanted, post a job vacancy, or create a resume here.