It is a known fact that the IT industry is facing a vast talent deficiency. Employers and employees in the IT, digital, and other industries alike are aware of this talent gap. With the rising demand, this skill gap has made companies desperate to hire IT talent.

Unfortunately, multiple industries are finding it difficult to find, hire, and retain IT experts with the required skill set they seek to create innovative products. I have worked for several tech and digital companies around the globe.

While one country had numerous coders, it lacked Data Scientists. Another country native to Data Scientists had only a stagnant number of SEO experts. These stats are mindboggling yet true.

The IT talent gap has become an adverse barrier for most industries in this quickly evolving digital world. According to a report generated by Analytics Insights about the global IT skill gaps, the most gap found were:

●     Big Data - 58% gap

●     Robotics - 60% gap

●     AR, VR - 61% gap

●     IoT (Internet of Things) - 62%

●     Cyber Security - 64%

●     AI (Artificial Intelligence) - 66%

Another report by Korn Ferry Institute found that this talent gap will increase to 4.3 million IT skilled workers by 2030. Due to this (believe it or not), companies have lowered the technical criteria to quickly hire IT staff and fulfill their business needs.

Let’s discuss in more depth why companies have lowered hiring criteria to recruit IT staff:

Reasons for Lowering Technical Criteria to Hire IT Staff

Increase in Demand

I have already mentioned the statistics concerning the talent gaps in various IT industries. It clearly shows what the industries are dealing with. It has become integral for every company to use, maintain, and optimize the latest technologies to support business needs.

For this, they need a team to help them achieve these goals. Companies are pursuing digital transformations without realizing that these technologies depend on technically sound individuals with the preferred skills.

With the rising needs of businesses, the leaders of various industries have lowered the technical criteria for hiring IT personnel. Why? Because expert IT job seekers won’t subject themselves to weeks or months of the slow hiring process and look for a job elsewhere.

Technological Advancement and Trends

If you go back in time (5 to 7 years ago), only specific businesses were leveraging tools and technologies for a competitive advantage. People considered these tools and technologies as royalty only tech giants could implement.

But with the global COVID-19 outburst and strict SOPs implementation, almost all businesses were forced to implement new technologies by hook or by crook. Soon businesses realized how important these tools and technologies were and what kind of competitive advantage they could gain in their specific market by implementing them.

Even today, industries require in-depth IT implementation in the business to stand out from the crowd. Solutions like cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and virtual and augmented reality have been the driving sources behind the latest technological advancements and trends.

But if you look under the surface, not every company needs to create an in-house technically sound team. They can instead leverage managed services and have an IT team handed to them. However, hiring an IT staff with the perfect skill set is still challenging.

Shallow Talent Pool - Decrease in Supply

Companies aren’t wrestling with the rising technological trends and tools only. They are also in a battle with other tech giants. For example, tech giants like Facebook, Google, and Apple attract more IT staff from the worldwide talent pool for obvious reasons.

However, companies that can’t compete with these tech giants are left with a shallow talent pool that doesn’t work to their advantage. For this reason, companies have abandoned the traditional hiring processes and increased wages to attract top talent.

In fact, more companies are looking forward to hiring fresh graduates possessing the latest skills that are relevant to their business.

Our Learning Methods Have Changed

The technologies and tools we learned a decade ago aren’t the same as what’s being taught in colleges now. More and more people opt for short, intensive boot camps that make them proficient in specific IT skills.

But the downfall to this path is that many IT people have no degrees. Companies don’t consider candidates without the required qualification - unless you are some sort of prodigy.

But if you do exhibit such tremendous skills, companies may be willing to give you a chance while you complete your required qualifications after being employed. Thus, lowering the IT hiring criteria in the process.

Outdated Workforce

The rise in technology and its use benefits business efficiency and growth. In contrast, this results in the existing IT workforce’s skill sets becoming outdated. According to the World Economic Forum, more than 50% of employees will need to upskill by the end of 2022. 

In my opinion, this isn’t subjected only to the IT lower level staff. The leadership team and the C-level executives are also underskilled and have lost their touch to lead their companies forward in this highly innovative era.

With a staff exhibiting an obsolete skill set, companies are searching for IT experts who can fill the positions quickly. Ergo, the technical criteria for hiring IT staff is lowered. Companies don’t have the luxury of waiting for a few weeks or months of interviews and specialized tests to fill a single position.

Reliance on IT Staff Continues to Grow

Every industry requires the implementation of technology and tools to some extent. But this doesn’t make the hiring process any easier. While the technical criteria are lowered to hire IT staff quickly, finding a candidate proficient in multiple skills to cater to particular business needs is challenging.

Hiring managers and newly hired staff will have to fill this talent void. Employers must retain skilled IT employees and provide them with technical workshops and training to enhance their skill sets. In contrast, employees must take every opportunity to upskill and broaden their skills without relying on company resources.