What has been the impact of Covid-19, on IT hirings, not only for the IT industry but IT positions across sectors?
As the post-pandemic situation continues to change and evolve, most organisations are aggressively driving recovery and growth with digital transformation at the core and this bodes well for the IT sector. In addition, there is a lot of investment in the digital, ERP and eCommerce space either via system integrators, captives, or product organisations.
Any interesting trends you have observed regarding IT recruitments in the recent few months, compared to last year?
The IT sector demand is at an all-time high; with flexibility in work locations we see a lot of traction in hiring for IT and IT-related skills. Owing to this spike we also see quite an inflation in salary expectations. Increasingly in a candidate-driven market – particularly in the IT sector, candidates receive multiple job offers and employers are under pressure to attract and retain premium talent. Candidates have more choice that they are able to command more competitive salaries, flexible working patterns, stronger study support, and a full career development plan.
Can you share with us the challenges of virtual hiring and how you had set the processes in place as a leading staffing organisation?
We have always had virtual elements in our hiring process – digital assessments and interviews, etc, and the pandemic just thrust us fully into virtual hiring. The key challenges we faced are candidate legitimacy, joining no-shows, and premature resignations. To control and mitigate these scenarios we mobilised a combination of our inherent expertise as global leaders and third-party tools. We have also made significant investments in the employee engagement space to build candidate stickiness.
Which industries are witnessing IT recruitments, and why? Also, for which positions?
Predominantly we see significant investments by captives, SI’s, BFSI, Fintech, e-commerce, and in the supply chain space for digital, ERP, and sales enablement technologies.
Which IT skills are currently the most in-demand? Has the pandemic driven the demand for hiring people with particular skill sets?
Skills that are in high demand: Fullstack developers, Javascript developers, Front-end developers, Machine learning and AI, Reactjs/Angular/Nodejs developers, Java core backend developers and .netcore developers. The past few months of the pandemic have only accelerated the dire need for specialist digital/technical skillsets to help businesses become more aligned with today’s fast-paced environment.
With news of large scare hirings by IT majors, how do you foresee the demand vs supply panning out for good talent in the next six months?
While the availability of talent has not been an issue, attracting premium talent has been an area of concern. Candidates have become a lot more selective with the opportunities. We foresee this spike continuing up until Q1 2023.
Are you witnessing any impact on IT salaries?
Yes, due to the increase in demand the salary expectations have spiked up to 80% of the last drawn. In addition, the spike in demand for tech professionals from non-IT sectors is also leading to higher salary expectations among the IT sector workforce.
How is the pandemic and its aftermath working out for the gig economy?
As gig and platform economies continue to grow, job seekers increasingly see flexible, part-time, and freelance work as substitutes to permanent roles. Digitisation has also accelerated, the pandemic and its aftermath is working in favor of this rising trend. We have seen an increase in traction for activity/task-based short-term needs and this also has worked in favor of gig workers/freelancers.