To say that there is competitiveness within the tech sector would be an understatement. If you work in IT development at any level, you’ll be all too familiar with going onto Stack Overflow to find answers for common tech conundrums. As a programmer hub, the site did a short survey in 2019 to see how many developers visiting the site would classify themselves as unemployed or looking for a job. In most industries, you tend to find somewhere between 15-20% is a good indicator, but for developers, that number was only 6.4%.
That’s a shockingly low number for an industry, but when you look at how competitive it is out there, and just how big turnover is for companies always expanding, any developer looking to progress might feel the easiest solution is to bury their head in the sand and hope something comes along.
Trying to find the right job can be daunting, but not if you know how tech companies find talent in the first place. If you’re on the outside looking in and don’t necessarily have great connections in your field, here is what you need to know about how tech companies recruit so that it can help you get seen in all the right places.
Firstly, location doesn’t matter as much as you’d be led to believe. 2020 has inadvertently become one giant experiment of seeing if home working works, with a general consensus that it doesn’t really change how people work. When looking at tech and development, that means companies based in the likes of London, Birmingham, Manchester, Reading & Edinburgh (all quite tech-heavy) may start casting the net wider to attract talent from further afield. So start looking at companies in other cities to see what opportunities exist.
You’ll also want to find recruiters who speak the language. I’m a firm believer that anyone who you want to sell your skills to should be able to know those skills themselves, so look for local recruiters who know the difference between a data engineer & data scientist; otherwise, you’ll find yourself being recommended for jobs which don’t fit your skillset at all.
The same goes for looking at job listings online. You’ll always be able to quickly tell the difference between whether a non-specialist agency and tech company have written a job ad. The company will usually use specific language and highlight examples of existing technology they use.
Any prevalent company that isn’t hiring in-house won’t want to waste their resources on hunting for talent. That’s why they tend to look for recruitment companies to do it on their behalf. When you’re looking for unique opportunities, it is better to sign up with a recruiter for your chosen niche rather than leave it big sites like Monster & Indeed which churn out any old job they can advertise. The more precise you can be when talking with a recruiter that knows their stuff, the more chance you’ll be shown better job vacancies suited to your skills.
If you are interested in learning more about tech recruitment, I recommend visiting MBN Solutions’ website here. They are a UK based tech recruiter who specialises in helping those in data science, analytics & digital find jobs which suit their skill level. If you’re looking at roles like Scrum Master, Web Analyst & Data Engineer, it is a good place to start.
