These days, it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid headlines about massive layoffs in the tech industry. Nearly every single one of the Big Tech giants have let huge numbers of employees go, and many smaller companies are following suit. In 2022 alone, more than 1,000 tech companies laid off over 150,000 employees.
There is also the fear of a looming recession. With so much uncertainty, shouldn’t companies be playing it safe?
Well, not necessarily. Tech talent is still in high demand. Despite the layoffs, hundreds of thousands of tech positions are still unfilled, according to a report by Dice, a major marketplace for tech talent. The report shows a 25% year-over-year increase in job listings from January to October 2022. Even in spite of a Q2 and Q3 slowdown, the numbers exceed 2019 pre-pandemic rates.
Organizations of all types still need the skills and knowledge tech professionals bring to the table, and those qualifications could very well be integral to their survival and success.
Why is tech talent still so important? There are several reasons.
Tech Talent Is Applicable Across Industries
It is said that today, every company is a tech company. In many ways, this is true. Now, even if a business doesn’t provide services or products that are technological in nature, per se, such as apps, the vast majority of them still rely on technology—software in particular—to deliver their services.
In fact, according to the Dice report, more than half of the top 50 employers of tech talent in 2022 between January and October were from non-tech industries: healthcare, aerospace and defense, finance and banking, and consulting.
Just think of all the industries that utilize technology heavily—healthcare, finance, agriculture, retail, education, manufacturing, transportation, marketing and advertising, aerospace, consulting, and entertainment, to name just a few. In fact, technology has become so integral to certain industries that new fields like e-commerce, fintech, and edtech have emerged to describe specialties that depend on tech.
The fact is that technology talent is extraordinarily valuable in today’s world. Even if the major tech companies are finding themselves dealing with redundancies, many businesses across sectors have use for them. That is also true of smaller tech companies and startups—they need the best of the best to help them grow their businesses, innovate at scale, and thrive in a competitive landscape.
The good news for these companies is that with Big Tech turning away talent, they now have access to professionals who are in search of their next great roles. And given that Korn Ferry is predicting a shortage of more than 85 million tech workers by 2030, the time for landing top tech talent is now.
Digital Acceleration Is a Priority
You have probably heard a lot about digital transformation over the last few years. This is the process of moving operations to the digital realm and innovating at scale, generating greater value.
With all the economic uncertainty these days, digital transformation is becoming imperative. Businesses that have been reluctant to modernize their processes and procedures need to embrace the phenomenon in order to stay relevant and thrive in spite of the obstacles. This will allow them to be more agile and adept at confronting the challenges they are facing.
Companies of all types need qualified technology professionals with the right experience to facilitate digital transformation.
But today, digital transformation is being replaced by a related concept that is more focused on the future: digital acceleration.
While digital transformation is about reimagining and conceptualizing individual processes, digital acceleration is an ongoing process that sees technological transformation as a long-term endeavor for a business. The concepts are similar in many senses—for example, they share the goal of meeting user and consumer demands through innovation and technology. And in many ways, digital transformation is the basis for digital acceleration, which takes the approach a step further. In essence, it is a chain of smaller digital transformations.
With constant changes and the incorporation of new technologies, it is essential for businesses to have top talent on their side. This will empower companies to move forward and embrace the digital age.
As the World Economic Forum puts it: “To lead the market, companies need to be smarter about how they innovate, how much risk they take on in the process, and how they leverage a little bit of technology to make a huge difference.”
There is another element to this idea as well: with so many new tools, processes, and technologies in place, team members need instruction on how to use them effectively. This is another important reason why tech talent remains in high demand: companies will require technology consultants to help them teach their employees how to best leverage the latest additions to their pipelines.
Specializations Are in High Demand
Tech talent is in demand across the board—there is no doubt about that. And some specializations are in particularly high demand, especially as organizations look to keep up their output in the face of challenging circumstances.
Data- and security-focused roles are in high demand, according to Robert Half Technology’s 2023 IT salary report. It should come as no surprise that roles like cybersecurity specialist and data scientist are critical in today’s world, given the sheer abundance of data organizations are generating and looking to make sense of, and the sensitive information they have at their disposal.
Overall, recruiting across the tech industry is still in full force. The Robert Half report also shows that of those surveyed, more than half are planning on hiring for new roles. At the same time, 86% believe it is difficult to find professionals in particular specializations, such as software and applications development, cloud architecture, and technology process automation. Of course, this stands to reason that professionals who do have these critical skills are uniquely positioned to be attractive candidates.
At the same time, the Dice reports that software engineers are the most in-demand professionals by job postings volume, up by almost 140% since 2021. Forrester’s findings are consistent with this, showing more than 200,000 new tech jobs that were created in October 2022 alone, a trend of 23 months in a row of job growth. Software engineering was the most popular role by far, with more than 80,000 open positions.
So, it is apparent that tech professionals with the right skills and a high level of talent will have no problem finding roles, even in the face of today’s layoffs.
What other specializations are having a moment? Many organizations are in need of professionals with experience in:
- User experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design
- Product management
- Agile
- QA testing
- DevOps
- Network security
- Cloud computing
- Automation/artificial intelligence/machine learning
Different Models Are Becoming More Popular
The standard, in-office, 9–5 job is a thing of the past. We all know that by now, no matter what industry you are in. Now, there are many different ways, modes, and styles of working. Since the pandemic, remote and hybrid models have dominated the scene, while in-office settings are less and less ubiquitous. With so many tools and technologies available to help us complete our jobs without commuting into an office, it is apparent that in-person work is not as necessary as it once was.
Now that the tech world is facing a reckoning—to some extent—businesses are not only considering work arrangements in terms of when, where, and how tech professionals complete their responsibilities but also the very conceptualization of the tech job itself.
Instead of employing full-time, onsite professionals to complete the majority of the tasks, businesses are looking elsewhere and thinking about different models and styles. They might, for example, turn to outsourcing companies to find key specializations and talents, which may not be immediately available at their doorstep. Now, they can tap into a global talent pool.
With the uncertain landscape, outsourcing and freelancing models are becoming more popular. This is a way of taking advantage of the best talent in the industry without incurring as much risk. Organizations across industries can benefit from these services.
In the context of the current tech landscape, outsourcing and similar models are giving businesses that are trying to find—or re-find—their niche a competitive edge without paying exorbitant prices for quality work.
One thing is abundantly clear: all industries and practically all businesses need tech professionals on hand. Without them, they will be hard-pressed to succeed when things get really tough. In the digital age, survival is unlikely without these professionals.
That said, businesses will need to get creative in how they find and hire the right talent for them. They will need to think in terms of their needs and the gaps that currently exist in their workflows and operations, as well as their goals and objectives beyond weathering the storms that are on the horizon. And that means thinking outside the box and not necessarily relying on the tried and true models of the past.
Opportunity in the Face of Obstacles
In moments of difficulty and even uncertainty, it is natural to want to play it safe. For some, that means letting go of talented technologists and other professionals to cut costs and incur less risk. But history has shown us time and time again that the organizations—and even the people themselves—who persist and do not just survive but also thrive and grow are the ones who continue to brainstorm, act on ideas, and innovate.
That is easier said than done, of course. But it is obvious that in order to persist through the challenges and obstacles that are in our present and future, we will need to think in terms of the opportunities that exist, rather than the roadblocks that stand in the way of reaching our goals.
In order to achieve those goals, businesses need to have the right talent on their side. That is where the opportunities truly lie. Yes, Big Tech is laying off talented people, but that is a doorway for other businesses—perhaps smaller ones that might not have had the chance to attract top talent in the past—to seize the opportunity to have the best professionals on their teams.
There is also the opportunity to reconceptualize and consider how to accomplish our goals and objectives. Perhaps the models in the past are not the right ones for the current needs and landscapes. Maybe it is time to think about new styles and modes.
A Tech-Driven Future
The world is changing in myriad ways. We have faced recessessions. We have dealt with an unprecedented global pandemic that changed our planet and every person, location, and organization forever, perhaps in ways we have not yet even realized. We have grappled with wars, natural disasters, and devastation.
The impact of the current climate cannot be understated. All of the events we are currently dealing with will have long-term implications.
Now is not the time to rely on the models of the past. Yes, there is a probable recession looming and there are abundant changes that are taking place in the tech world. But this is a time to think about the future, both long- and short-term.
The future is technology. That is abundantly clear. Tech is integral to our daily lives and our work lives. The world is driven by software and hardware, and that is the main reason why the talented individuals who ideate and create the solutions we depend on are hardly going anywhere.
Software developers and other tech professionals have skills and qualifications that are always in high demand. We need data professionals—analysts, scientists, and engineers—to make sense of the enormous amount of information we have access to. We need UX/UI designers to create optimal experiences for every individual. We need QA engineers to ensure that our products are of as high quality as possible.
And, of course, we need software engineers and developers to build the products we use day after day.
That said, tech professionals will need to make certain that they are truly making the most of their skills and showcasing them well. In some cases, they may want to attain new qualifications and certifications to make themselves more marketable. Those individuals who prove to have the highest level of talent and key specializations will be the ones who stand out.
Innovation is obviously critical to a better future for all of us. The businesses that recognize that and continue to persist, searching for the best talent to fit their needs in spite of the many obstacles that stand in their way, will thrive.
