The IT Talent Shift
The 6 Things You Need to Know About
Hiring IT Professionals Today
Introduction
1
Current IT Rates2
Length of Contract3
Interviewing Speed4
Start Date5
Consultant Retention6
Deal Breakers About the AuthorAbout Resource 1
Contents
3 5 7 9 10 12 15 20 21Intro
There is a dynamic shift happening in the way organizations are finding and retaining IT talent. The number of IT jobs and need for IT professionals is steadily rising. Staffing Industry Analysts reports IT employment has grown for 27 consecutive months with 23 of those months being all-time highs. In addition, SIA projects 2014 IT staffing revenue will be $25.9 billion, when just in 2009, IT revenue was only $15.8 billion.They also report a 13% increase in growth in IT employment – which is the highest growth of any staffing segment. According to Dice.com, the IT unemployment rate continues to remain near all-time lows at 3.5%. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation also reports that the current scarcity of IT talent is coupled with the fact that 48.3% of college students that initially enrolled in STEM programs (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) are changing their minds to pursue degrees in non-STEM related fields. This is rapidly decreasing the number of technology professionals in the marketplace.
Companies seeking highly skilled, technical talent are facing a dilemma. They’re having a harder time finding IT talent and if they do find it, they risk the chance of their talent leaving for a better offer someplace else.
Intro
This is a dramatic change from where the IT market was just five short years ago. In 2009, if an offer was extended to an IT consultant, you could rest assured they would take it and start a few days later. Today, if an offer is extended to an IT consultant, it is usually one of many offers they are receiving. As a result, candidates are becoming more selective with the roles they accept based on money, technology, flexibility, longevity of the assignment and the client location. The shift in the supply and demand of technical talent has granted the IT professional the upper hand.Even with the current IT market conditions, getting the right IT talent for your company is not impossible. There are many pitfalls that hiring managers or directors can avoid when hiring for IT consultants. Below we highlight the 6 things you can do to assure you’re getting the right talent.
1
Current IT Rates
The competitiveness of the current IT market means you might have to analyze what you are willing to pay as a bill rate. According to Staffing Industry Analysts, the IT staffing segment reported the strongest bill rate trends as compared to other segments. IQNavigator, a vendor management system provider, also reported a 3.3% increase in IT temporary bill rates in 2013.
If you’re not offering potential consultants current market rates, it’s extremely likely they will not accept your offer. Your competition and other companies vying for the same skills are keeping pace with these changes. Today, it’s not unheard of for IT professionals to have multiple offers on the table at the same time. Offering a competitive bill rate will increase the odds that they will select your contract over a competing contract or job offer.
According to Staffing Industry Analysts, the IT staffing segment reported the strongest bill rate trends as compared to other segments
If you do lose a candidate to another position, don’t be afraid to counter-offer and raise your bill rate. Many IT managers will start a new search if a candidate rejects the offer on the table. However, if you can be flexible in your bill rate and are willing to go a little higher to get the right talent, counter-offering might be what you need to do to make that candidate accept your offer.
You’re most likely to find the best IT talent already placed in other contracts and just because they are currently employed, doesn’t mean you can’t try to recruit them away. If you can offer them a better project, more bleeding edge technology to work with or a better rate, most likely they will jump at the chance to accept your offer.
Current IT Rates
If you can be flexible in your bill rate and are willing to go a little higher to get the right talent, counter-offering might be what you need to do to make that candidate accept your offer
2
Length of Contract
Contract length is an important consideration when a candidate is looking for a role. Even as a consultant, many IT candidates are looking for stable employment. After all, a longer term contract means longer job security for them.
If you know your project is going to be for a year or longer, make sure your job description reflects that properly. Many managers know that the contract will most likely run longer but put a shorter time frame down on the initial job description and then extend their contracts one to three months at a time. This often leads to consultants being on projects for years with multiple extensions. However, you could possibly risk losing a valued consultant by doing this. If consultants don’t know if they are going to get extended or not, they’re going to stay
If you know your project is going to be for a year or longer, make sure your job description reflects that properly
active in the job market and be consistently looking for a job that offers them a contract with a specified length. If they do get extended, that means signing new paperwork which opens up the door for rate negotiations, which could potentially mean a higher bill rate to your bottom line.
3
Interviewing Speed
When you have identified that you need an IT professional, the race begins. It is important that you align yourself with a top IT consulting firm who has an established recruiting department. When candidates are presented for consideration it is important that you move quickly. Waiting two weeks to review and set up an interview allows competing organizations to snatch this talent. If you receive a candidate of interest from your consulting firm, get that interview scheduled. If you know that this individual is the consultant that you want, make the offer quickly. This will help to avoid counteroffers and other opportunities to present themselves.
If you know that this individual is the consultant that you want, make the offer quickly
4
When making an offer to a candidate, most managers push the start date out a week or two. This gives them time to prepare the project, source any equipment the consultant will need and get all the paperwork in order. While this might make sense, it’s really in your best interest to expedite this process and have your consultant start as soon as you can.Again, the lack of IT talent in the marketplace makes it a risky proposition that while your IT consultant has verbally accepted your role and promised to start in two weeks, they’re still getting calls from other recruiters. If something with a higher rate, better flexibility or the chance to work with more bleeding edge technology comes along, there’s a probability they may jump on it. This leaves you high and dry to start the recruiting process all over again.
Start Date
It is a risky proposition that while your IT consultant has verbally accepted your role and promised to start in two weeks, they’re still getting calls from other recruiters
Work with your recruiter and candidate to get a reasonable start date on the books that doesn’t leave much lag time for your candidate to find another contract someplace else.
5
Consultant Retention
Retaining a consultant that is on a six-to-nine month contract might not be at the top of your to-do list. As IT consultants are only with your company for a set amount of time, you may think it would be more advantageous to put retention efforts toward your permanent employees. However, losing consultants mid-way through their contract could be detrimental to your project, and your overall IT planning and strategy.
The current state of the market also makes losing one of your valued consultants much more likely to happen. As the IT segment continues to grow and the number of IT professionals stays the same, the only way organizations are going to get the talent they require is to recruit them away from another organization. The lack of IT professionals in the market will also make backfilling your lost consultant that much harder. Staffing Industry
Losing consultants mid-way through their contract could be detrimental to your project, and your overall IT planning and strategy
Analysts reports the IT staffing segment as being the only segment to hold a higher level of difficulty in recruiting. There is a universal demand in all areas of technology but starts to become more of an aggressive struggle in bleeding edge technology such as: web development, web services, business intelligence, mobile technology, security, and big data.
There are ways to reduce the risk of valuable consultants leaving you mid-way through their contract.
• Provide them with positive feedback on their contributions and include them as part of your IT team. • Consider raising their hourly bill rate on a 6 month or
yearly basis so the consulting firm can give them a raise.
• Make sure they know about other contract
Consultant Retention
Staffing Industry Analysts reports the IT staffing segment as being the only segment to hold a higher level of
difficulty in recruiting
opportunities at your company if their assignment is coming to an end.
• If you know that you are going to be extending their assignment, let them know at least 45 days in advance. Making these known will make your consultants feel more like a member of the team and think twice before leaving your company for another project.
6
Deal Breakers
Often, managers have certain job requirements that are not aligned with the expectations of today’s workforce. For example, requiring the consultant to be in the office by 7am. If an IT consultant needs to take his or her child to school before work, they might not be able to make it into the office at 7am like the manager requires. To the IT consultant, it’s not detrimental to them when they turn down your offer. They’ll have more calls with hiring managers who offer more flexibility with their schedule. Another example of a potential detrimental requirement is having your consultant work an odd hour shift every week. Again, a requirement like this could actually be hampering your search. With the IT job market lacking the talent they need to fill jobs, many consultants can be picky and not work odd hour shifts. They’ll easily find another contract that gives them normal nine-to-five
Certain job requirements could actually be hampering your search
hours or even more flexibility than that. Robert Noble, Director of Software of Engineering at WhitePages says, “Besides compensation and the technical work of the job role, companies are using culture as a key differentiator. They aren’t only talking about the company, they’re also talking about the perks outside of work and benefits.” There are certain technical requirements that are non-negotiable with certain jobs. You should, however, analyze technologies that are most important, but not must haves when searching for IT professionals. Having a very targeted and specific set of skills will help attract the right level of talent. These things could be the reason you’re not finding the talent you need for your job. Lean on your IT recruiter to help you uncover these. They’ll have feedback from speaking with candidates and can let you know if something is holding them up finding you the right talent.
Deal Breakers
Besides compensation and the technical work of the job role, companies are using culture as a key differentiator
– Robert Noble, Director of Software Engineering at WhitePages
If you’re looking for a candidate with a certain bleeding edge technical skill, be open minded about accepting a candidate who has similar skill sets within alike products. Many technologies have similar attributes that can make these technologies somewhat transferable. Going with a similar technology might also save you money in the long run. While having a consultant with bleeding edge technical experience is great, it might be more than your department or project needs and you’ll be paying for skills and knowledge you’re not using. And if your highly-skilled consultant gets bored at work because you over emphasized the skill set needed, they probably won’t be with you very long and will move on to a company that allows them to use all their skills and experience.
While the market is making it harder for you and your company to find IT talent, it’s not impossible. One of the
Deal Breakers
Having a consultant with bleeding edge technical experience might be more than your department or project needs and you’ll be paying for skills and knowledge you’re not using
most important things you can do is to work closely with your IT recruiter to fill you in on what he or she is seeing in the market and what they’re hearing from candidates first hand. Learning from them will help you set your recruiting strategy to market conditions and help ensure you’re finding the best talent.
Deal Breakers
Working closely with your IT recruiter will help you set your recruiting strategy to market conditions and help ensure you’re finding the best talent
It wasn’t so long ago that when you offered a consultant a position, they gladly took it and stayed with your company the duration of their contract. The shift that is quickly taking place is giving IT candidates an upper hand in deciding what contracts they want to take and when. To prevent downstream issues, it’s important that managers and directors realize this sooner rather than later and adjust their strategy accordingly. It is also important to align yourself with a strong business partner in the IT consulting industry such as Resource 1. To learn more about R1 and how we can help find, hire and retain the IT talent you need,
Align Yourself With The
Right IT Partner
About the Author
As the Executive Vice President and Managing Director at Resource 1, Anastasia oversees the Technical Recruiting and Human Resources departments. With over 15 years at Resource 1, she is involved in the overall strategic planning of Resource 1 and implements long term and short term company goals. Over the last 20 years, Anastasia has been involved in assisting global organizations develop cutting edge technology through identifying and positioning talent. Anastasia also provides human resources consulting services for several Resource 1 clients which encompass strategic management, workforce planning/employment, human resources development, compensation/benefits and employee relations.
Connect with Anastasia
LinkedIn:
Phone: 630.575.5141
Email: avalentine@r1consulting.com
Resource 1 is an established Information Technology consulting firm that has been providing staffing solutions for Fortune 1000 companies across North America since 1982. We provide a broad range of IT consulting services including full life-cycle application development and systems level support/integration.
Technologies we recruit for (list not all inclusive):
• Unix, Linux, Windows, HP NonStop, Mainframe, AS/400 (iSeries)
• Java/J2EE, .Net (C#, VB.Net, ASP.Net, ADO.Net), C, C++, COBOL, SCOBOL, TAL, RPG • Web Services (SOAP/RESTful)
• OBIEE, SSRS/SSIS/SSAS, Cognos, Business Objects, Hyperion, MicroStrategy, SAP, Netweaver • Oracle, MS SQL Server, DB2, MySQL, Teradata, NonStop SQL/MX, NonStop SQL/MP, Enscribe • VMware, Hyper-V, SAN (EMC/HP), BladeLogic
• HTML5, Objective-C, UI/UX, iOS, Android
• BASE24 ATM, BASE24 POS, CONNEX, Phase3, SIS, GE Carecast/Centricity, GoldenGate, Data Express, Prognosis, XYGATE, iTP WebServer, MoneyNet
Our dedication to every client is our number one priority. To Resource 1, our clients and consultants are the reason we exist and it shows in every way we interact with them. Our devoted team ensures success and satisfaction across all of our clients and our staff.
To learn more about Resource 1, please visit our website at www.r1consulting.com, where you can learn about our services.
r1consulting.com P: 630.575.5100
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