According to CompTIA’s State of the Tech Workforce Report, between September 2021 and August 2022 there were 10.7 million job postings for roles that require only basic computer literacy and productivity tools — the things most people learned in high school. At the same time, companies are experiencing big hiring challenges.
“Hiring feels risky,” said Tacy Trowbridge, member of CompTIA’s Future of Learning and Workforce Think Tank and most recently, global education through leadership and advocacy lead, Adobe. “It's a big and expensive decision, and people want certainty in a process that is uncertain.”
While companies hedge their bets on hiring, the gap between available jobs in tech and people who want them gets larger. Here are three ways you can improve your own hiring process, according to members of CompTIA’s Future of Learning and Workforce Think Tank.
Even well-established teams struggle to hire the right people — sometimes when they’re right in front of them. When Kathy Yankton, member of CompTIA’s Think Tank and learning architect, Cisco, and her team were trying to hire a project manager, they nearly missed the best candidate because the job list of must-haves was too specific.
“We had a very long list of things we wanted and one of the things near the top of the list was Agile knowledge our top candidate didn't have,” Yankton said. Going back and forth with the team, they realized requiring a specific software knowledge was keeping them from hiring the best candidate, and they could offer training to fix that.
“What we really wanted was somebody that had that flexibility, that curiosity,” Yankton said. “Look at the list on your job posting and really think, “Do I need this? Is this really that important? Or are there other intangible things that I need more that are higher on the priority list?”
Ann Marie Sastry, member of CompTIA’s Think Tank and CEO, Amesite, noted that she sees the same mistake in tech hiring over and over: The endless search for the perfect candidate.
“In tech we think we're just going to find the right person if we keep looking hard enough,” Sastry said.
What you’re likely looking for, she said, is someone with aptitude, a good attitude, drive and curiosity, but those people get filtered out in the applicant screening process.
“Find a person who has 60%, 70% of what you're looking for that has the aptitude, the attitude, the desire, the drive, curiosity,” Sastry recommended. “Then you can train them up that last 15% or 20%.”
Hiring teams stuck in rigid practices might believe that hiring an outsider would be nice, but tend to let risk, fear and tradition keep them from hiring nontraditional candidates.
“Something happens in the disconnect between hiring manager, the company philosophy, the recruiting system, HR and those people get filtered out in the applicant process,” Sastry said. “The truth is most of the training happens after you hire somebody.”
The longer your list of job requirements is, the more unattainable the job becomes for people who don’t check all of your boxes. That’s especially true when you require a four-year degree.
CompTIA’s State of the Tech Workforce report suggests that 4.2 million job postings for core technology occupations were posted between September 2021 and August 2022, jobs that likely included a degree requirement.
The degree gap is keeping open positions unfilled, partly because requiring a degree greatly reduces the candidate pool. Even though the number of bachelor’s degree holders has increased according to the Census Bureau – 41% of Americans hold a bachelor’s degree — not great odds they will hold a degree in tech either.
Instead of focusing on degree requirements, Sastry recommends expanding your idea of what makes a good candidate.
“A good question to ask in a hiring situation is: Does this candidate have strong potential to become an outstanding member at our organization?” Sastry said. “It’s not really possible to assess it with certainty, but persuading interviewers to consider the role of learning on the job and the qualities in the candidate that make them ready to succeed is helpful.”
Companies looking to hire tech workers can improve the language in job postings to help you find people who match your needs. It’s also a good idea to dissect the automated screening process. Focus on the work and the skills required to do the job and ensure that is what your job post is asking for.
Employers who want to fill even one of those 11 million open positions need to simplify and rewrite job postings to balance technical skills with professional skills, experience and certifications. Many positions have become difficult to fill because even middle-skill workers with experience are excluded by automated application tools that remove applicants that fail to meet the over spec’d rigorous requirements.
One way to help improve your job postings, save time and hire better is to use the free CompTIA Tech Job Posting Optimizer tool to get access to a library of standard tech jobs that can be customized to your organization’s job postings or load your own postings into the tool and have it reviewed for best practices.
Interested in learning more about CompTIA’s Workforce Development Solutions? Learn More.
Gordon Pelosse is senior vice president, employer engagement at CompTIA. He is an IT services executive with over 40 years of experience helping employers solves the challenge of finding skilled talent in a very competitive market. Helping to unlock potential in the millions of under and unemployed by training for the millions of open jobs in IT.
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