Take a peek inside the recruiter’s crystal ball to see what’s on the tech horizon.
When you’re working in the IT sector, your skills have to evolve as quickly as the field itself… if you want to stay ahead, that is. 2017 saw the usual stellar progress, and Moore’s Law doesn’t show any signs of being disproved in the year ahead.
Recruiters pride themselves on knowing what skills a company is looking for in their candidates. How else to place the right talent with the proper job? This means knowing what’s going on in the rapidly accelerating IT sector, and which trends are ready to shape vital skillsets in the near future.
First of all, will there be more jobs than applicants?
In 2020, tech employment could be looking at some serious downtime. Projections from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics are predicting a million more tech jobs than there will be applicants to fill them. According to the research, schools just aren’t properly preparing students to enter the tech workplace. As the figures stood last year, there were half a million jobs available, but less than 43,000 tech students graduating.
If that figure does double in the next two years as the Bureau suggests, it can have a very positive spin for industrious recruiters and candidates. The modern world of work is well on the way to putting more power in the hands of applicants anyway, but with so many jobs lying in wait, there’s going to be less competition between candidates and a greater need among employers to land them.
The key IT areas going unfilled
The projected gap will center around a number of areas including cybersecurity, coding, the IoT (Internet of Things) and big data. Recruiters who can source candidates in these fields will be ahead of the game in finding the people companies will be looking for. In a study that looks forward 5 to 10 years, the American Statistical Association (AMSTAT) predicts big things in the IT job market for data analysts.
More than half of all organizations are going to be looking to add data analysts to their ranks in the coming years, most prominently in their HR, accounting, and business administration departments. However, The AMSTAT report underlines how much harder recruiters will have to work in locating qualified applicants.
For one, they’ll be tackling the above-mentioned issue of under-educated graduates in a sector that moves like lightning: the kind of progress that means the best IT candidates are going to have to basically be in a state of constant learning.
A typical recruiting problem is matching applicants to a desirable pay rate. With most data analytics jobs leaning toward the financial sector (where wages are typically higher), recruiters will need to make compensation a central part of their strategy. Rigorous workforce planning is going to be required to stop up this particular employment gap.
IT jobs, the IoT, and an ever-entwined world
To give a quick overview of the IoT: there were 20 billion IoT devices connected globally in 2017, more than 6 billion smartphones projected to be in use by 2020 and $3.5 trillion generated by 2035. People are becoming one with technology, rendering every business in the world at least partially a tech company. Sadly, this level of interconnection is a gift to cybercriminals. More positively, the IT staff whose job it is to handle cybersecurity is going to be far more in demand.
Companies are going to be on the lookout for applicants with the IT skill to design, code, test, and upgrade apps, programs, and systems. In a world where the IoT will be the norm, it isn’t just people who become connected and mutually reliant through collaboration; their billions of devices and cyberspace itself will be, too.
Safeguarding the whole data structure from attack and error is going to spell the difference for a successful business.
An Intelligent/Digital/Mesh – further into the future
2017’s Gartner Report sees the tech sector’s future as a three-headed thing: one Intelligent face, one Digital face and a final Mesh face. The Intelligent advancements will be based analytics and apps, smart household devices, and AI itself. 59% of companies are getting ready to ramp up their AI-aspects in the coming years. As AI becomes integral to practically everything, there’s going to be a place for IT pros practically everywhere.
On the digital front, it will be immersive experiences, Cloud to the Edge, conversational platforms, and digital twins that shape tech. System software developers and testers will be in high demand as immersive experiences like augmented and mixed reality gather momentum in areas from home gaming to virtual boardrooms and medical operations.
Conversational platforms that help humans and computers interact will need to be developed and maintained, while the ever-evolving Cloud will need constant IT supervision and support. Digital twins are a concept so potentially world-changing that we recommend this further resource to see how essential they’re shaping up to be.
The last major section, the Mesh, underlines once again the vital nature of IT security. The phrase “mesh” simply refers to everything being integrated and the inherent rise in security risks this entails. Cybersecurity staff will be needed constantly as an integrated part of a business’ mechanism, with added emphasis on deception technologies.
Conclusion
The all-conquering nature of technology ensures positions for IT professionals for a long time to come. The challenge for recruiters will lie in finding the right people with enough qualifications to populate a rather barren tech landscape. It’s going to be a challenge, but one worth the effort. If you’re seeking the best IT talent for your own company and need help filling roles, we specialize in placing excellence.
At Consultis, we’ve been delivering first-class project solution, technical search, and contract services since 1984. To see how we can help find you the IT professionals with the skills to leverage today’s – and tomorrow’s – tech for your business, contact us today.