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Use Cases for the Recruit-Train-Deploy (RTD) Talent Model

Krishna Kumar — Sun, 24 Mar 2024 18:55:24 +0000

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP BY:

Krishna Kumar

Founder & Managing Director

The Recruit-Train-Deploy (RTD) early-career IT talent development model helps organizations retain in-house knowledge and cultivate their next generation of loyal talent while reducing costs and risks. Derivative advantages also include the ability to bring talent closer, streamline the recruitment and training process, and fulfill diversity goals.

This paper outlines the top use cases for the RTD model and its benefits over other talent acquisition models. Specifically, we will highlight the following use cases:

1. Bringing a function or capability in-house
2. Succession planning for legacy skills
3. Supporting diverse hiring practices
4. Bringing an offshore operation onshore
5. Decluttering your IT talent strategy
6. Supporting organizational growth
7. Specialized skill development – adapting to emerging technologies
8. Supporting HR with talent development programs
9. Reducing dependency on just-in-time hiring

Bringing a function or capability in-house

When a company lacks the expertise to create a certain new application, infrastructure, or function, it often enlists the help of an outside entity or resource. Once the development activity is complete, the organization may want to bring the function or capability in-house. A cost-based or strategic decision will require new, cost-effective support talent that will grow with the company. Regardless of the underlying driver, RTD is a viable talent acquisition approach that is cost-effective and timely.

This affordable model enables businesses to source trained talent in an abbreviated time frame to support their new IT requirements. It is, however, essential to note that bringing in emerging talent requires a transition and knowledge transfer plan. If the tech team has experienced managers with the technical expertise, the new hires can start delivering on the projects under their guidance. In the absence of experienced technical expertise, the team would need to first hire experienced line managers for close guidance and mentorship until the new talent is capable of taking over the function.

An effective RTD model provides a candidate success team to run in parallel with line managers’ ongoing support on the job. To ensure continuous development and advancement, the RTD provider’s success team should consult with the company’s line managers on a regular basis.

Key Takeaway: RTD is a highly cost-effective option to bring a function or capability in-house; however, the model requires an effective transition and knowledge transfer plan in coordination with the existing team’s line managers to ensure the talent is productive faster.

Succession Planning for Legacy Skills

In technology teams, the preservation of invaluable legacy skills, competencies, and institutional knowledge is pivotal for organizational success. Recognizing this, businesses prioritize the retention of such assets through meticulous succession planning.

However, despite careful preparation, the simultaneous departure of key skill-holders and their support staff presents a formidable challenge. This scenario risks a sudden depletion of essential talent, skill, and knowledge, leaving the organization vulnerable.

The Recruit, Train, Deploy (RTD) approach offers a strategic solution to this issue. In addition to filling primary skill positions with trained internal talent, organizations can partner with RTD providers to equip new contract staff with requisite skills. This proactive measure serves as a buffer in the event of unforeseen departures, providing a crucial window of opportunity to manage transitions smoothly. Furthermore, the option to transition RTD talent into permanent roles ensures a seamless integration of essential skills into the organizational framework.

Key Takeaway: Beyond conventional succession planning lies a proactive strategy to safeguard irreplaceable corporate knowledge and deep skill sets. Through the RTD approach, organizations can effectively bridge potential gaps in legacy skills and competencies, ensuring long-term resilience and continuity.

Supporting Diverse Hiring Practices

Diversity hiring helps an organization increase staff satisfaction, productivity, and retention. In fact, McKinsey reports that, “Diverse companies enjoy 2.5 times higher cash flow per employee, have 19% higher revenues, and have better anticipation/coping/adaptation skills.

“Slightly more than 85% of employers reported having formal diversity recruiting goals,” according to NACE’s 2022 Recruiting Benchmarks Report. However, there can be challenges in meeting these goals.

Most IT organizations typically hire their early career talent from a handful of colleges and universities in their area of operation, limiting their talent and diversity pool, especially in regions with fewer minorities. This can pose issues in meeting diversity goals when attempting to source talent to address particular technical skills needs.

RTD firms typically use omnichannel talent sourcing methods to find diverse talent with high-demand skill sets, presenting a viable alternative to university and other traditional hiring methods. This approach also frees internal HR/recruiting teams to focus on other initiatives.

Key Takeaway: Diversity hiring isn’t a fad, it’s a strategy with tangible benefits. With the RTD method, companies can meet diversity goals while filling in much-needed IT skill deficiencies.

Bringing an Offshore Operation Onshore

While there are some clear cost advantages to using offshore talent for software development, many organizations are shifting to the onshore or nearshore approach for reasons that can offset any cost savings—they want to align their IT team with similar cultures and time zones. These two factors alone can significantly impact the productivity and cohesion of a distributed team, thereby mitigating any cost-saving advantages.

In fact, Bloomberg reports that “80% of companies in North America are actively considering nearshore.”

Historically, IT leadership has turned to affordable junior talent as a bridge during such a transition. The problem with this strategy is that it typically brings on largely untrained talent, which can increase risk and decrease efficiency.

The RTD model is an excellent alternative in these scenarios. Temporary developers are pre-trained for up to 12 weeks on the skills needed before joining a team. This training has no upfront cost, and line managers can even help develop the curriculum. One of the most significant benefits of the RTD model is that a business has 12 weeks to calibrate a mutual fit, significantly de-risking the hiring process.

Employing the RTD model while migrating from offshore to onshore/nearshore does require some knowledge transfer from the offshore teams or some expertise onshore before infusing RTD talent. Therefore, the involvement of offshore teams or onshore experts in curriculum development and training is required.

Key Takeaway: RTD can be a very effective tool when migrating IT talent to closer shores. It can ease the burden of transferring knowledge and workload from offshore teams while maintaining productivity.

Decluttering IT Talent Strategy

Large IT teams may struggle with managing myriad sources of talent acquisition, e.g. multiple temporary agencies, consulting companies, recruiting firms, etc. A failing strategy can lead to inefficiencies, ineffective internal talent development, and retention struggles. The HR and leadership teams may unintentionally neglect existing internal talent to focus on the bevy of temporary talent – often leaving internal staff dissatisfied. This can lead to turnover and critical knowledge/intellectual property loss. IT leaders are always looking for efficiencies.

Tech teams that employ the RTD model often see a 90% retention and conversion-to-permanent rate, which is higher than any other early-talent development approach. A primary reason for this is the streamlined nature of RTD. If planned strategically, HR and IT leadership teams can minimize reliance on multiple temporary staffing and consulting firms by partnering with an RTD provider. Organizations will benefit from a more streamlined operation with a clear plan to cultivate internal talent.

Key Takeaway: RTD is designed for multiple hires at scale. This is where the cost efficiencies come in. Additionally, its coordinated nature helps foster a cohesive, operationally sound early talent acquisition program for enterprises

Supporting Organizational Growth

As companies grow, they require investment in technology talent to support the growth In 2024, 66% of companies are increasing their IT budgets, and 59% plan to increase the size of their IT staff (Spiceworks, 2024 State of IT Report). The money is there, but is the strategy?

Sourcing the necessary skills and finding early-career talent that can make an immediate impact is harder said than done. This is where many companies struggle. Organizations can set themselves up for a prosperous future with cultivated talent that advances their competitive advantage when executed correctly. However, recruitment and training can be overwhelming and an unwelcome challenge to many businesses.

The RTD model can help. Whether a business needs help achieving its yearly project goals or meeting its multi-year technology roadmap, RTD can supplement experienced hiring with trained junior talent that can hit the ground running productively from day one. The line managers can often participate in the training curriculum to ensure the talent has the skills required at onboarding.

RTD firms tend to focus on hard technical skills and much-needed soft skills such as communication, teamwork, adaptability, problem-solving, critical thinking, and even leadership traits. This combination helps to ensure temporary talent’s productivity and ongoing contribution to an IT team.

Key Takeaway: The RTD model can help supplement an IT team with early career talent that has the skills and business understanding needed to advance a business’s strategic goals.

Specialized Skill Development – Adapting to Emerging Technologies

IT leadership constantly tries to innovate and keep up with the latest trends and technology releases.

Take AI-augmented software engineering, for example. Technology organizations across the globe are looking for ways to integrate AI strategies into their development efforts.

Gartner Group states, “By 2027, half of all enterprise software engineers should be using generative AI tools to help with the development, testing, and operation of software.”

If an organization doesn’t have this expertise in-house, what can they do?

The RTD model can fill in these gaps in a collective team skillset. Line managers can work closely with the RTD provider to cultivate temporary talent to bring these new skills into an organization. This on-demand approach shortens the recruiting curve, speeds access to unique skill sets, and provides immediate access to emerging trends before it is too late.

According to the World Economic Forum, 2023, “76% of companies are investing in emerging technologies.”

Key Takeaway: Using the RTD model, an organization can immediately jump on any emerging trend. To ensure the temporary talent has the necessary skills, a business team can work with the RTD provider to pre-train talent before they join the organization.

Supporting HR with Talent Development Programs

Upskilling an IT team can be a significant competitive advantage and an essential aspect of keeping up with new industry trends and technologies. However, not all businesses are set up to offer adequate training. Building and running an early-career upskilling program can be multi-faceted and quite challenging. Many HR organizations lack the resources to provide IT training adequately in-house.

Similarly, hiring the right tech talent is always a challenge. Recruiting, onboarding, and ongoing support can be daunting, time-consuming, and frustrating.

The RTD model helps address both challenges. An RTD partner can provide the necessary training for a business’s team before new contract hires come aboard. This solves two problems: 1) An organization does not need to provide the training itself (although a team from that organization can be involved if desired), and 2) The HR team can focus on other important initiatives and leave the recruiting and training of early-career talent to the RTD provider.

“53% of companies have trouble recruiting developers with the right skills.”

Top Software Development Challenges for 2022 Survey, Reveal.

Effective RTD providers work as an extension of HR teams, complementing and supporting their existing training and recruitment initiatives.

Key Takeaway: Whether supplementing or replacing a training program or finding alternate recruitment channels, the RTD model can greatly support HR departments.

Reducing Dependency on Just-in-Time Hiring

Relying on just-in-time hiring practices can cause a business to miss out on critical opportunities like innovating quickly, entering a new market, outpacing a competitor, etc. It is easy to think the result is quite the opposite, but there are inherent risks with this real-time strategy. Hastily bringing on new talent can lead to rash decisions, potential mismatches, and early exits.

“Employers continue to confront (challenges with finding) candidates with the right skills at the right price,” says Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter. “Given current demographic trends, it makes sense for employers to invest in long-term solutions rather than temporary Band-Aids.”

The RTD model can be a successful alternative. In a short period, a business can hire contract-to-hire talent that is trained, skilled, and supported by its RTD firm to ensure success for the deployed organization. This way, a business can mitigate the potential downsides of presumptive hiring with a lower-risk, highly proven, swift approach that yields better overall results.

Key Takeaway: Market opportunities can lead to hasty just-in-time hiring decisions, which can cause more harm than good. RTD helps mitigate any downside associated with bringing on contract-to-hire talent because this talent is highly vetted, trained, and supported.

Conclusion

The RTD model has many potential applications for IT organizations. It can help organizations bring offshore talent closer, mitigate the risk of just-in-time hiring, free HR teams to focus on other initiatives, enable organizations to retain existing talent and bring in much-needed new talent. Once employed, RTD quickly – yet diligently – arms IT teams with the expertise and resources needed to gain a competitive advantage, meet business goals, and set companies up for a successful future.

Click here to learn more about how the RTD model can help your business.

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Is Your Tech Team Ready to Embrace ‘Recruit-Train-Deploy’

Krishna Kumar — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 04:27:29 +0000

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP BY:

Krishna Kumar

Founder & Managing Director

There has not been a ton of innovation in talent development models in the recent past. The recruit-train-deploy, which is a holistic early-career talent development model has changed that. Many prominent Fortune 500 enterprises such as CapitalOne, Cognizant, Vanguard, and J.P. Morgan have successfully employed this innovative model and it’s quickly becoming mainstream.

Recruit-Train-Deploy (RTD) helps enterprises build a pipeline of custom-trained IT talent who can address their strategic and specific skills and resource needs. This highly cost-effective and low-risk model allows businesses to hire vetted and uniquely trained talent primed to add value to their IT organization. In addition, the professional development element of the training produces well-rounded talent and requires no upfront investment. Many prominent enterprises such as CapitalOne, Cognizant, Vanguard, and J.P. Morgan have successfully employed this innovative model. However, not all organizations are a good fit for RTD. It requires scale and team involvement.

If you find yourself hiring for the same skill repeatedly, you might want to consider RTD.

However, if you need to fill just-in-time, one-off roles, RTD may not be a good fit.

The RTD approach to early career talent development and deployment features a 12-week training and vetting process, identifying and developing talent more successfully (in the long run) than any other talent model. Having said that, the RTD model is not a perfect fit for every organization. Read below to learn if RTD is right for your team and company.

You Must Be Hiring at Scale

RTD is a cohort-based training and deployment model designed to train and infuse capabilities for a specific technology, skill, or stack. While there is no upfront investment in recruitment or training, the model only works at a threshold scale. A typical RTD cohort consists of 15-20 associates, but we have seen slightly smaller and larger cohorts. Associates are involved in synchronous training based on a curriculum co-designed with your technology team. This ensures the right skills are learned, enabling your new talent to hit the ground running.

If you require talent (let’s say under 10 professionals) across multiple skill sets, you can select a generic training track focused more on foundational skills like cross-technology, industry knowledge, and professional development.

Key Takeaway: RTD is a viable model for tech teams needing to hire more than ten early-career individuals trained in a specific skill or stack. This approach, however, requires an 18-week lead time.

RECRUIT

Diverse
Talent Curation

4 weeks

TRAIN

Experiential
Learning

12 weeks

DEPLOY

Immersive
Deployment

15 months

The RTD process takes about 18 weeks from planning to actual deployment. It requires 2 weeks to customize the curriculum, 4 weeks for recruitment, and 12 weeks of training.

Your Line Managers Must be Involved

The RTD service provider typically works in tandem with your technology team to plan and execute this talent acquisition initiative. To ensure success, your team must commit to a modest level of early involvement (primarily around co-developing the training curriculum) to ensure a great candidate experience, timely project execution, and the development of properly trained professionals.

An effective RTD services provider should provide a candidate success team to support associates on the job. However, this is not a substitute for the support your line managers would provide. Once on board, the new talent should be closely guided and mentored by your internal line-manager team, who can provide more precise, job-specific support. The RTD provider’s success team will certainly continue to liaise between the new talent and the line managers to ensure advancement.

Key Takeaway: The RTD model is the opposite of just-in-time hiring and requires careful planning and execution, your team’s upfront curriculum-development involvement, and the presence and buy-in from your line managers.

A best practice to mitigate downstream issues and win your team’s support is to involve your line managers early on in the planning phase. They can provide crucial curriculum input that will help ensure the success of the new hires, and their foundational involvement helps mitigate future pushback. You do not want the new talent coming aboard without the critical skills your line managers demand.

Key Takeaway: Involve your line managers early in the process. This helps you integrate the new hires into the team and reduce their time-to-productivity.

Contract-to-Hire Possibilities

While your new talent is initially considered temporary, they don’t have to stay that way. Similar to a so-called “try before you buy” philosophy, you can hire your new talent at any time permanently. In fact, a successful RTD service provider should help you facilitate this transition. Your RTD partner ought to provide ongoing support and training for the first 12-15 months of the deployment of the new hires. During this initial yearlong stage, your talent will work as employees of the RTD company and contractors to you. This is a crucial period for the development and productivity of the new hires.

The RTD staff’s continued involvement enables them to liaise between the new hires and your line managers. The RTD team can help you develop work plans, establish a communications cadence, resolve conflicts, and meet the goals of your projects. This process helps integrate the talent into your technology team, preparing them to be converted to permanent employees if your organization chooses to keep them. Your RTD partner should not charge extra for this transition.

Key Takeaway: Contract-to-hire is the recommended path for identifying and integrating early career talent into your technology team before they are considered ready for potential permanent hire.

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Which Early Career IT Talent Development Model is Best for Your Team

Krishna Kumar — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 11:04:50 +0000

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP BY:

Krishna Kumar

Founder & Managing Director

Competitive business pressures never go away. In fact, with AI and other groundbreaking technologies leveling the playing field, competition is perhaps at an all-time high. The way to cut through the clutter and really differentiate comes down to implementing the right technology and employing the right people. We are going to focus on the latter.

Despite a perceived IT talent shortage, there is ample technical talent available. That isn’t the issue. The problem is finding and onboarding the early-career talent you need in a cost and time-effective manner without incurring unnecessary risk. Hiring nascent talent can be a great way to access and train future valuable professionals at lower costs than established high-dollar talent.

There are many models to choose from, each with its own unique advantages and disadvantages.

New IT Talent Takes Time and Costs Money But does it have to?

A 2023 Gallup poll found that:

New employees take 12 months (on average) to become fully productive.
62% of businesses with effective onboarding programs witness a 54% increase in employee engagement and a higher time-to-productivity ratio.

This tells us two things:

It takes far too long to generate value from a new hire
Companies must establish highly effective onboarding processes to accelerate that timeline.

Model	Recruitment Costs	Training Costs and Resources	Months-to-Productivity	Risk Level
Recruit-Train-Deploy	Zero	Zero	4	Low
Apprenticeship	Zero	High	12-24	High
Bootcamp	Zero	Zero	12	High
University Hiring	Zero	High	12-24	High
Internship	Zero	High	12-24+	High

Recruit-Train-Deploy (RTD)

One of the most effective approaches is the recruit-train-deploy (RTD) model. It can augment your in-house capabilities, help you deliver on your strategic initiatives, and satisfy your diversity goals without wasting time, money, and precious resources unnecessarily.

As the RTD firm does the recruiting for businesses and strives for diverse hiring, there are no recruiting costs associated with sourcing young talent and meeting your diversity goals. The RTD firm effectively finds prospective IT talent with the right education, soft skills, and emotional intelligence level required to excel quickly and fit within your organization.

Moreover, the RTD firm collaborates with the customer’s line management to customize the training program to meet the client’s unique needs. This way, talent comes aboard with the right foundational knowledge and training, significantly reducing time to productivity.

The RTD model provides a more risk-free way for companies and employees to have a trial period before committing the time and expense of full-time onboarding.

You help frame the training curriculum

Talent provides value to your team

Talent is tested before onboarding because the client organization can monitor success, soft/hard skills, aptitude, and emotional intelligence during the RTD training program and make course corrections along the way. Only those who are a good fit are hired.

Some RTD firms take training a step further and provide the necessary technical and business training coupled with emotional intelligence training, which focuses on self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, social skills, and relationship management.

“87% of companies that have made no changes in the hiring process to meet their diversity objectives this year.”

The State of Tech Talent Acquisition 2023, General Assembly.

These augmented skills help ensure talent is integrated well with their new organization. This matched skill set and emotional/cultural alignment, coupled with a figurative 12-week interview process (during client monitoring of their training), leads to higher overall satisfaction and retention rates, making this a highly successful early-career talent development model. Businesses also have the advantage of selecting whether or not to retain the talent permanently. Selecting the RTD model can significantly reduce time-to-productivity, increase staff retention rate, and provide an established career path for junior talent who should increase value to organizations.

The disadvantage to this model is that the client’s team isn’t performing the initial foundational training, but with the team’s involvement in crafting the curriculum, this seeming disadvantage can be largely mitigated.

Apprenticeships

With an apprenticeship, the organization sources its own talent and incurs no other upfront costs. It is, however, a paid job with training. Fortunately, some government grants exist to supplement the costs of apprenticeships.

Businesses provide skills-specific, hands-on training. Most apprentices receive a slightly lower compensation than that of a permanent employee typically for the first 12-18 months of employment. This model provides some advantageous PR opportunities around an organization’s ESG (environmental, social, and governance) goals. Because the business itself is doing the hiring, apprenticeships provide a great diversity hiring opportunity. The recruitment team can source suitable talent that meets its diversity goals.

This model also enables organizations to train the employees their way. Once the apprenticeship ends, these employees are primed for permanent hiring, as they have the specific skills and expertise the business seeks. Therefore, retention is among the highest with this approach. Moreover, in some states, businesses also receive tax credits and employee tuition benefits.

Bootcamps

IT bootcamps teach early-career professionals specific skills, such as coding, cybersecurity, or software development. If businesses need these skills, bootcamp graduates can be a great source of new talent. It costs organizations nothing, and you are hiring talent self-selected for the bootcamp. This should mean these professionals have a passion for learning that skill. These hires could be a good fit if you need this particular area of expertise. However, the entry requirements for bootcamps are generally less stringent than that of apprenticeships or recruit-train-deploy programs. There is also no upfront vetting on soft skills, meaning talent may lack soft skills and emotional intelligence. Moreover, soft skills training is typically not part of a technical bootcamp training. No thought is put into diversity and you must hire these individuals as permanent hires from day one.

The cost to students for the average IT bootcamp is around $10,762, and full-time programs require 60-90 hours per week for the student, and part-time programs require 15-23 hours each week. According to Forbes and its Best Online Programming Bootcamps list, every bootcamp it reviewed offers access to job placement services upon program completion. Some even offer job guarantees and will refund a graduate’s full tuition if they cannot secure a qualifying job. This model can present some risk for hiring talent that isn’t a good fit as you rely on the bootcamp to provide adequate training. Unlike the RTD model, your line managers are not involved in curriculum building or foundational training.

Campus Recruitment

The most traditional approach for finding early-career talent is hiring directly from Universities. Organizations have the opportunity to establish long-term relationships with select universities and can even offer curriculum feedback based on their particular needs and the needs of the industry. With very close partnerships, businesses can also collaborate with the university on upskilling programs.

These new hires are selected largely based on any internships they’ve had, as well as their grades and education. This approach can surely yield some tremendous young talent, however, your line managers are often on the hook to train the new talent before most can make valuable contributions to your IT team. With university recruitment, you have the advantage of training professionals your way from the start, You also have the flexibility to select diverse talent. Moreover, these employees tend to stay longer than other models as they feel grateful you gave them their first big break. Some sources put this number as high as 98% the first year.

“47% of businesses are using college campus recruiting efforts to fill their open positions in software engineering, data analytics, data science, and UX design.”

The State of Tech Talent Acquisition 2023, General Assembly.

Other benefits to the hiring organization include strengthening your employer branding among university students. This can help your recruitment team engage early with emerging talent. These hires also bring an outside, fresh perspective to your organization and may offer new ways to deal with issues your company faces. One of the primary challenges with the university hiring approach is that organizations rely on the university hiring cycle, and there is little flexibility for onboarding timelines. Diversity hiring may also be more difficult than with other models if you recruit from only a few colleges.

Internships

Internships are a great way to find diverse talent that meet all your requirements without incurring substantial expenses. Most enterprises pay their interns for the tenure of the internship. These professionals come aboard as pseudo-employees, and your team can train them accordingly. Throughout their tenure, you can assess their skills, learning aptitude, soft skills, and emotional intelligence level. You also see firsthand how well they get along with your permanent staff. You can offer them a permanent position if they are a professional fit. If they are not, you didn’t take a big risk, so you likely didn’t lose much in terms of time and resources.

Conclusion

There are several early-career talent development models to consider. Many approaches offer attractive advantages, such as no-cost hiring, no-cost training, and skills-specific development. Most, however, offer some disadvantages that must be considered when selecting the best model. These can include bringing in untrained talent, limited diversity opportunities, and fixed onboarding windows.

When selecting the best model for your business, look closely at each approach and see where each model’s pros and cons align with your business, your needs, and your hiring timetable. You should then have enough background to pursue your best route further.

If you would like to discuss more around this topic, please contact us.

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AI Isn’t Killing Jobs, It’s Creating New Ones

Krishna Kumar — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 04:21:23 +0000

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP BY:

Krishna Kumar

Founder & Managing Director

Artificial intelligence might sound like the enemy. After all, no one wants to imagine a world where robots have taken over and jobs are scarce.

The truth is, AI isn’t killing jobs. The technology is actually creating a wide array of new jobs, but as expected, new skills are necessary.

Before giving up on finding your dream job because AI is the future, embrace AI and see what new skills you need to learn to remain a highly sought-after talent.

Spreading False Fear

For years, we’ve all heard the same story – automation will destroy jobs. Even the New York Times reported on how many jobs have been lost to automation. However, what those stories don’t say is automation and quickly advancing AI technology are no different than any other major economic shift.

It’s natural to feel like AI is killing jobs if you’re one of the people who’ve been laid off as machines took over. Yet, all of this has happened before time and time again. When farm equipment made it easier and faster to tend crops, thousands lost their jobs. The birth of the Internet took many jobs as people began doing more interactions online, like shopping and paying bills.

Throughout history, economic situations have drastically changed as the way we do things has shifted. The one thing that always happens is new jobs are created as a result. Before you give in to the fear being spread, remember, it’s a false fear. AI isn’t killing anything.

A Shift In Skills

Yes, it’s true that jobs are lost, but they’re replaced by others. If the majority of jobs were lost every time experts reported that a new technology was taking over, the last few generations would have never even had a job, let alone have one to lose.

Instead of AI killing jobs it’s creating a shift in the skills necessary to be qualified for a job. To go back to the farming example, to be successful, farmers had to learn how to use and maintain their new equipment versus doing things manually. That took time, but it also created jobs for farmers who were great mechanics. They could focus on fixing the equipment versus working on the farm. Those jobs didn’t exist until others were lost.

Some Winners And Losers

With a shift in skills comes a shift in industry as well. One UK-based report shows the harsh truth about AI and how it will hurt jobs in some industries while boosting jobs in others. For instance, the report shows a nearly 25% decrease in jobs in manufacturing, but over a 20% boost in the health industry. The same report stated AI could create as many as 7.2 million new jobs by 2037. Not only would this number replace the jobs lost, but boost available jobs by approximately 200,000.

Despite the naysayers, AI will never replace all jobs. After all, AI is created by humans and it’ll be filled with human errors. Until the day when nothing can be hacked (which is never) and technology never glitches, AI won’t take over.

Making The Transition

Before you panic that you won’t have the right skills, remember the Internet has revolutionized the way people learn. Long before your current job is replaced, take online courses. Some employers are even happy with digital certificates for individual skills versus degrees. Preparing now makes you a must-have candidate when it comes time to find an AI proof job.

AI Creates New Jobs

Before you start learning something new, it’s important to understand what types of jobs AI is creating. Believe it or not, programming isn’t the only valuable skill to have. Inc. has put together a list of 21 jobs that are being created by the AI revolution.

While many are tech-related, such as edge computing managers, others are more low-tech. For instance, as the way we handle finances changes, more financial advisors are needed. Another low-tech option is senior care companions.

Overall, the more tech skills you learn, the more you’ll future-proof your chances of having a great job. Remember, AI isn’t killing jobs. It’s just changing the type of jobs available.

If You’re Ready To Find The Right IT Job That Fits Your Skills, Partner With The IT Staffing Agency That Helps You Find The Job You’ve Been Preparing For Your Whole Life.

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5 Talent Acquisition Strategies to Tackle the IT Skills Gap

Krishna Kumar — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 04:19:02 +0000

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP BY:

Krishna Kumar

Founder & Managing Director

You’ve likely heard about and maybe even experienced the IT skills gap. It’s a serious problem, but one that isn’t as difficult to overcome as it may seem.

The first step is understanding what created the gap. Once you know that, it’s easier to make changes within your business to bring in the talent you need to continue growing your business.

Believe it or not, IT talent is out there, but it’s a highly competitive market. It’s time for new strategies to help Talent Acquisition teams tackle this growing problem.

The Story Behind The IT Skills Gap

The skills gap problem isn’t just in the IT sector, but in most skilled professions. In fact, HR Dive says the skills gap was called by “the perfect storm of problems.” From an aging workforce to technology advancing rapidly, it’s not just one issue that’s resulting in a lack of available IT talent.

According to the BLS, there will be over a million more jobs in the tech sector than there will be applicants ready to fill them. That was in 2020. With technology rapidly changing and advancing, especially with AI, that number will continue to rise. Sadly, two-thirds of businesses don’t know how to tackle the problem, so it just continues to get worse.

Even worse, only 60,000 computer science students will graduate into the workforce each year. As you can tell, that’s a problem. Since it’s a hot industry and it’s finally considered cool versus geeky, why aren’t there more graduates?

It’s a three-way problem. First, you have curriculums that are outdated by the time a student finishes a 2-4 year degree. Second, businesses want the latest skill sets, but no one has the amount of experience required. Third, it can be expensive for tech professionals to continue paying for an education as technology constantly evolves. All of this is discouraging and makes many people choose careers in other fields that are more stable.

So, how can HR solve the IT skills gap?

A Shift In Skills

1. Look For Soft Skills Over Hard Skills

Extremely detailed job ads won’t attract many applicants. It’s impossible for most people to meet every requirement. However, IT professionals with the necessary soft skills are able to learn your business’s particular systems and needs quickly. This may require a few weeks or months of on-the-job training, but you’ll save money by not having an unfilled position for months or possibly years.

2. Widen Your Search

It’s easy to get caught up in looking for someone with a bachelor’s or master’s degree. After all, this means more experience, right? Not necessarily. Expand your search to those who have experience in the field, but not necessarily a degree. They’ve worked and trained at different businesses and know just as much about technology as those with advanced degrees. While that 23-year-old with a Bachelor’s in Computer Science sounds great, the 45-year-old with a few certificates might be more knowledgeable with more experience to handle changing technology.

3. Provide Skills Training

If you want to appear more attractive to applicants, create a system that offers skills training. Instead of constantly looking for someone new or requiring employees to pay to learn new skills, pay for the training yourself. By investing in training as technology evolves, you’ll not only attract better IT talent, but retain it. By doing this, you fill more jobs and prevent losing others.

4. Provide On-The-Job Training

Make it clear in your job descriptions that you’re willing to train the right applicant. You can’t expect hundreds or thousands of applicants when your job description requires knowledge of a specific system. There may only be a handful of businesses even using that system. However, hiring an applicant with a strong foundation in the IT area you require means they’ll be easy to train for specific needs.

5. Put Education First

If you want to bridge the IT skills gap, HR has to put education first. Start a movement to help people get the training they need quickly and cheaply. For instance, create a section on your business’s application page about free or low-cost training resources that your business would accept. You might list agencies that work to train the right talent to help find skilled IT professionals faster.

Some businesses even create ever-changing curriculums through local colleges to train job-ready applicants in less than a year. By doing this, HR gets more people interested in technology and helps them get the skills they need to continue learning and growing with the business.

Are You Having Difficulties Finding The Right IT Talent? Quintrix Has Access To Talent Other Staffing Agencies Don’t. Why? Because We Create The Talent.

Let Us Help You Eliminate The IT Skills Shortage For Your Business by Contacting Us To See How We Train Talent To Meet Your Needs.

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Is Your Job Description Chasing Away Top Talent?

Krishna Kumar — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 04:15:14 +0000

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP BY:

Krishna Kumar

Founder & Managing Director

All you want to do is attract the best talent to your business, but for some reason, the right people aren’t applying. What’s wrong?

The most common issue is the job description. If it’s confusing or unappealing, you’ll be lucky to get even a handful of applicants. In most cases, they won’t be who you’re looking to hire.

Instead of just settling, learn what’s driving talent away and revise your job descriptions to attract the talent that helps your business grow.

Requirements Are Absurd

Job descriptions often ask for far more than what’s necessary. Instead of attracting the right people, the description reads more like you’re looking for a superhero to apply. This tends to come from hiring managers who don’t fully understand the job and just add a long list of requirements that make a business seem overly demanding and unpleasant.

Career Addict lists some of the most ridiculous job ads, such as a social media specialist position requiring at least 10 years of experience. At the time, social media was barely a decade old, meaning no one could meet that requirement.

Prevent this issue by being realistic. Also, ask the department that needs the employee what skills the person actually needs to have. You want a job description that actually appeals to those who have the skills your business needs, not a superhero that doesn’t exist.

It’s Not Gender Neutral

While a job description might sound innocent enough, it may still be geared more towards one gender over another. For instance, more aggressive sound phrases like “crush it” are more likely to appeal only to men versus women. It’s always best to use a balance of words to attract both genders equally. A wide variety of studies have shown that women are more sensitive to the phrasing used, which means the right wording helps attract the top talent from both genders. Glassdoor provides 10 ways to create more gender-neutral job ads along with research to explain why.

The Application Asks Too Many Questions

If your job description includes an application, you may be driving away talent simply because the application is too extensive. Studies have shown that longer applications are used to weed out applicants who aren’t dedicated to getting the job. However, even the best talent may give up when it takes an hour just to answer all the questions for the initial application. Simply keeping the description realistic and the application under five minutes increases applications by up to 365%.

The Details Are Vague

Read over your job description. Does it clearly state what the job is and who should apply? If there are any questions, it might be too vague. While you don’t have to write a novel, you should list the main duties, skills and requirements. Applicants want to have some idea of what their average day would be like before they apply. If the job description is vague, it may make applicants believe a business isn’t certain about what they want or need.

Nothing Stands Out

The top talent are looking for a place that makes them want to get up in the morning. You may have listed the requirements, but why should a candidate apply at your business over the competition? Remember, hiring is highly competitive and applicants want to know what makes your business special.

Talk about what makes your business the best place to work. Think of it as a quick cover letter, except this one is to gain a candidate’s attention. If you don’t sell your business, top talent might skip your job description and move on to the next.

Having Trouble Attracting The Right IT Talent At Your Business? Contact Us Today To Learn More About Our Staffing Solutions.

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8 IT Skills That Will Set You Apart This Year And Beyond

Krishna Kumar — Mon, 06 Mar 2017 04:24:58 +0000

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP BY:

Krishna Kumar

Founder & Managing Director

Technology isn’t a trend that will just disappear. Instead, the industry continues to grow and that means IT skills are in high demand.

However, this doesn’t mean any IT related skill will do in the highly competitive field. Instead, you need certain skills that set you apart from other top talent not just now, but well into the future.
If you want to improve your chances of landing your dream career, now is the time to start mastering these must-have IT skills.

Easy Adaptability

Technology changes quickly. Just look back at the last decade to see how trends have changed, such as going from in-house data storage to cloud and hybrid-cloud solutions. While it’s not necessarily an IT skill you can learn in college, adaptability is a must-have skill for keeping up with trends. This involves continuous education on your own, or if you’re lucky, your employer may pay for some courses. For those who adapt quickly, you’ll have no problem keeping an job in the IT industry.

Mobile App Development

Since Pew Research Center first studied smartphone ownership in 2011, ownership in America has jumped from 35% to 77% in early 2018. Tablets are also increasingly popular with 53% of Americans owning one. With this popularity, it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that 20% of Americans rely solely on mobile devices for their Internet.

With statistics like these, it’s no wonder mobile app development is one of the most sought after IT skills. Users want new and better apps, but businesses need talented people to create them.

Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning

Artificial intelligence and machine learning aren’t new, but they’re two areas with increasing adoption rates. Since 2013, the number of AI related jobs has increased by 450% and the number of enterprises adopting AI is expected to double by the end of 2018. Machine learning is part of the AI trend and more businesses are relying upon both to improve customer service and better analyze data. Master either or both and you’re good to go.

Cybersecurity

As long as there is data worth stealing or bored hackers wanting to cause chaos, cybersecurity will be one of the top IT skills. While you can specialize in certain areas, becoming a cybersecurity expert means businesses will seek you out to keep their companies safer.

Blockchain

Blockchain has come to the forefront in recent years as a more efficient way of recording transactions. It’s become so popular that global spending in the industry was expected to hit $11.7 billion by 2022, which is a massive increase from the $1.5 billion in 2018. This kind of growth means more jobs, especially for those who know the industry inside and out.

Data Sciences

Data engineering, data analysis and data visualization all fall under the category of data sciences. Data engineers create the foundation for gathering data more efficiently, while data analysts learn what to gather and how to interpret it. Finally, data visualization professionals help turn all this data into easy to understand visuals for quicker data absorption.

You don’t have to be an expert in all three, but having any of these IT skills will help set you apart. Businesses are eager to create more personalized experiences, improve marketing and increase efficiency. Data is the solution to all three.

UI/UX Design

UI and UX design apply to a wide range of areas, such as websites, apps and digital/physical products. While the two are different, designing with the user in mind is the purpose behind both. Development of new websites and apps isn’t going to stop. However, it takes more than just design and development skills to stand out now. The key is fully understanding and embracing the latest UI and UX design principles. Do this and you’ll be able to create sites and apps that are more appealing to users and more profitable to businesses.

DevOps

Finally, businesses are focusing more on DevOps. This collaboration between development and operations helps increase efficiency, reduce lead times and much more. Implementing and using this technology trend is tricky, which is why more businesses are seeking out DevOps professionals. The trend has won over giants like Facebook and Amazon, which proves it’s an IT skill well worth having both now and in the future.

Ready To Be Connected With Employers Seeking The Top Talent In The Industry?

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