Amid the hiring trends and disruptions coming in 2018, hiring managers may have more on their plate than they think. Today’s labor market is changing rapidly; it’s becoming more flexible, transparent, and skills-oriented. With tech advancements impacting the future of work, job markets transform the job profiles and descriptions themselves. Coupled with scarce highly-skilled candidates, shorthanded teams, and a competitive landscape, the hiring process becomes a tricky space for hiring managers. As the average lead time to hire an engineer ranges between 28 and 100 days, there’s no formula to determine how fast or slow it takes to fill an open position.
With hiring changes ahead, there’s much to unfold in 2018. Let’s look at tech hiring trends and disruptions to expect this year and what it means for hiring managers in tech.
HIRING TECH TRENDS & DISRUPTIONS TO EXPECT IN 2018
AI COMES TO TALENT ACQUISITION
We’ve seen headlines brandish AI across innovative inventions and ideas. But AI also plays a large role in talent acquisition goals. In the HR realm, AI solutions offer recruiters the ability to sort through resumes, make predictive matches between job seekers and roles using data, correct biases in the job descriptions, and use AI bots to automate tasks like scheduling. As AI tools accomplish low-value tasks for busy HR managers, this leaves professionals to focus on higher priority projects. With solutions to provide powerful and scalable efforts to the problem of “resume overload”, HR teams will see this trend grow in recruiting and finance industries.
What does this mean for hiring teams in tech? The rise of AI in these sectors will introduce more tech roles like software engineers and data scientists into the mix. Working as an engineer or a developer in this age is a much more diverse role than it was a decade ago. Tech talent can build AI chatbots in a retail store or optimize algorithms for a trading center. For hiring professionals, taking on fresh talent means reassessing pay and benefits, workplace perks, and flexible work options.
CHANGING FACES DISRUPT JOB CREATION
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recently reported that soon older people will outnumber teens and children for the first time in history. With demographic shifts in the workplace and older population seeking improved quality care, healthcare roles are in demand. According to the BLS, of the 15 roles projected to add the most jobs in the next decade, four are in healthcare sectors. But this is not to say that healthcare aides and providers have the fastest growing job position. Hiring for tech is gaining massive traction in “non-tech” industries. Many highly skilled tech talents will move into retail, manufacturing, consulting, and biotech industries.
What does this mean for hiring managers in tech? While health-related skills rise in value, tech roles play a large part in optimizing for health care. According to the BLS, the top fastest growing occupations include security and operation analysts and software developers. The BLS predicts these roles will expand and thrive in healthcare industries as patient privacy and personal data become more important, new healthcare policy enrollments go digital, and healthcare delivery improvements are in progress. In a sea of changing faces in the workforce, hiring managers will have to address filling health-care positions, while job seekers will see health-related skills and tech savvy talents benefit in the future.
JOB SEARCH IS ON THE GO
In a hyperconnected world, we carry an ocean of information in our pockets every day. According to Pew Research Center, 95% of Americans now own a smartphone of some kind. With this scale of ownership, the impact of mobilization is at an all-time high. Looking at job search activity, Indeed reported 76 percent of Millennials use mobile devices, followed closely by 73 percent of Generation X, and 57 percent of Baby Boomers. Today, matchmaking is happening between job seekers and employers anytime and anywhere across generations and occupations. Yet, mobile job experiences remain painful to use with complicated online forms, unnecessary required fields, and outdated applicant tracking systems.
What does this mean for hiring managers in tech? With contingent workforces on the rise, the ability to stay connected is more important than ever. We expect to see advancements in mobile applications that facilitate communication between remote teams. Optimizing job searches is crucial to capture talent pools on a large scale. Allowing easy uploads for resumes, streamlining processes and mobile pathways, or integrating messaging applications simplifies the application process.
ROLE EXPERIMENTATION FOR LATERAL CAREER MOVES
It’s typical to move “up” in a job, but some employees travel sideways or make a lateral move in their career path. Maturing in a position doesn’t just mean getting a promotion. Gone are the days where talent stays still in one role. As employees pursue different career aspirations and new skills, lateral changes are common in the workplace. However, few organizations have a formal program to support lateral shifts. A lack of internal opportunities causes valuable talent to leave for other offers. In fact, Glassdoor reports that job title stagnation hurts employee retention whose roles no longer fits their interests. By introducing role experimentations, organizations have an opportunity to match talent with their most productive role, reduce turnover, and benefit from a range of skills and passions.
What does this mean for hiring managers in tech? Under blended workforces and new businesses, organizations need to move with agility to keep up with workforce trends. Companies like ATB Financial launched a formal career development program to support internal talent mobility. Following this example, we expect to see greater improvements for cross-team role changes inside organizations moving forward in 2018. In today’s candidate-driven market, companies should reevaluate their philosophy on job-hopping and implement strategic job changes to remain competitive and hire motivated and passionate workers.
Gear Up for 2018
Move fast and break things. A saying well-known and practiced in Silicon Valley, it also holds value for many tech titans, digital-based industries, and science programs. With constant, ever-evolving trends that impact the state of talent acquisition, quick-fire solutions seem tempting. In this way, hiring managers may hire a body at 50 percent productivity rather than face an empty position. But staying up-to-date in the semiconductor news, and gearing up for upcoming forces today pays off in the long run. As future trends and movements impact the workplace, putting a plan in place now with the right knowledge and preparation pushes you ahead of the competition.
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