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Where Is the IT Skills Gap?

The Association for Talent Development has defined the IT skills gap as the “significant gap between an organization’s current talent capabilities and the skills it needs to grow or remain competitive”.The top talent that we speak of refers to the candidates that feature a wide array of relevant skills and a large amount of experience to compliment them.

Per The Wall Street Journal, c-level executives are growing increasingly concerned with this gap (73% say it is a “key concern”) and for good reason. The inability to find premier IT talent has the possibility of crippling an organization through its technological functions.

Why Is There a Gap?

  1. Technology Changes Rapidly

Coding languages, software updates, and common practices in the IT industry are constantly changing. This requires professionals in this field to continually grow their knowledge base to keep up with the competition. This can be difficult to do while trying to hold down the career that they are currently at or searching for one, causing some of the discrepancies we see today.

  1. Employers Requiring Too Much Experience

Although most hiring managers will desire a fair amount of experience, some may be overstating the amount necessary to complete a role’s duties. This leads to the skills gap being overstated by requiring too much experience in an actual workplace. We will touch on this more later in the post.

  1. Lack of Desire for STEM Majors

This is a systemic issue that is affecting several industries across the United States. Our youth simply aren’t as interested in these crucial industries anymore, severely narrowing the talent pool that businesses must work through.

How Can You Bridge the Gap?

  1. Competitive compensation, meaning more than just salary.

While a high salary will attract almost anyone, retaining that individual will require them to be intellectually-stimulated by their work environment. This can be attained through exposing them to new, innovative technologies or growth of their skill set that they may not find at other positions.

  1. Give the rookie a chance

Although most companies would like someone with a perfect skill set and experience to boot, the truth is that everyone else does too. Sometimes, and in a very judicious manner, you may want to try taking a chance on a candidate that may not have the exact amount of experience desired. The idea behind this strategy is that if they have the skill set and training, these “diamonds in the rough” can be polished into the perfect, loyal fit to your business.

The IT skills gap should not affect your business processes when there are several options available to mitigate the effects of it. If you’re trying to fill a position, contact us at connect@techquarry.com and we can gladly assist you in finding premier talent!


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