IT Hiring Trends for 2022-2023 That You Should Know to Succeed in Software Business

As we are closing into the third quarter of the year, new product owners and managers are looking into the latest IT hiring trends to rebound from a 24-month stretch of pandemic turbulence. This hiring expedition also extends to IT companies that weathered the pandemic pretty well, which now have to deal with another uprising challenge — an acute shortage of tech talents.

The good news is that the “perfect troubling” situation is boring innovative and highly effective trends in tech hiring. For instance, 53% of IT recruiters have expanded their hiring budget to find, interview, hire, and retain the most sought-after professionals in the industry with unique tech stack combinations. But this is just one trend. Here is an in-depth look into what to expect in 2022-2023, as far as current IT hiring trends are concerned.

Key Factors Driving Current Recruitment Trends 

It’s apparent in every organization or talent recruitment agency that the tech job market is changing in many ways. Tech recruiters need to be aware of the factors driving this industry shift to devise better hiring trends in tech and optimize services employees get to reduce staff attrition rates. That said, these are the reasons behind the emerging tech industry hiring trends.

Post-pandemic Crisis

The Covid-19 pandemic had a devastating effect on the supply and demand of professionals in the IT industry. For instance, every business, from small to big tech companies was facing an urgent need of shifting their operations online, which created a high demand for skilled developers and increased staff training cost. Companies like Facebook responded to this need by reportedly hiring 10,000 additional talents for product engineering roles.

Another effect of the pandemic on the IT industry can be seen in the increasing number of developers entering the job market, thanks to increased training, workshops, seminars, and hackathons. At the height of the pandemic, the number of IT talents in software development rose by 2.5%, as opposed to the projected 4%.

Shortage of Skilled IT Professionals

The acute shortage of skilled professionals in local and some renowned offshore talent pools is continuing to ravage the industry. A majority of companies still find it hard to fill vacant IT positions as some tech stack combinations attract fewer job candidates who possess the required qualifications. In a recent survey by CodinGame, 26% of the respondents said that only 17% of the candidates who contacted them had the required technical skills in Angular 2+, despite the framework being core, for almost any development project.

High Demand for Skilled Developers, Which Keeps Growing

Skilled developers can be defined by two categories of capabilities—technical and project-oriented skills. Tech hiring trends in 2022 show that project-based jobs are increasingly looking for talents with DevOps, mobile app development, and digital transformation skills. These qualifications are in-demand as they help companies create futuristic software products that meet ever-changing consumer needs.

When it comes to technical proficiency, employers are looking for developers with hands-on skills in certain programming languages, such as React, JavaScript, and Python. In fact, many recruiters will readily hire job candidates that include React as part of their tech stack skills in CVs.

The Rise of Remote Work Lifestyle

Remote working culture is rapidly replacing traditional workspace environments. A recent survey on current hiring trends in IT indicates that over 58% of IT executives are recruiting talents to work remotely, on top of paying standard benefits HR services time. A majority of them note that remote recruiting eliminates unnecessary hiring constraints, enhancing access to competitive markets.

Another reason that prompts employers to embrace remote work is excellent turnover, thanks to great candidate experience, which is seamless, all the way from the interview to project execution. At the same time, 62% of senior IT team leaders credit remote working culture for increased productivity, especially when a hybrid option is also incorporated.

Seizing Opportunities to Hire IT Professionals Overseas

Another factor contributing to rising trends in IT hiring is a new criterion that extends to recruiting tech talent in overseas markets. In fact, nearly 78% of businesses are happy and pretty much confident about their overseas developers and partners. This is probably due to the swift services they get, as well as negligent hiring bottlenecks since overseas tech job markets are often saturated.

With this approach, tech recruiters are deviating from the traditional norm of hiring university graduates only. It’s now common to find competitive talent job positions filled by self-taught developers, or entry-level coders from a boot camp. Latest studies indicate that at least 60% of IT talents in the global market knew how to build or code without ever stepping into a university or college classroom.

The Most Sought-after IT Professionals to Hire

Although recruiters are on the raw talents that cut across all roles in IT, some professions are in higher demand than others, probably due to emerging software needs as revealed by dynamic consumer behaviors and other market insights. That said, here are the most sought-after professionals to hire as per the IT hiring trends in 2022.

AWS Experts 

Turing estimates that AWS continues to gain popularity in the tech hiring trends of 2022, now accounting for nearly 10% of the top 50 skills required by tech recruiters. This is a rise from 6.3%, signaling that the demand won’t slow down anytime soon. Businesses often employ AWS technology for its security upgrades, relative affordability, as well as swift scalability, and customization features.

Companies are looking forward to hiring IT professionals with skills-set that is composed of AWS, Python, and, React, or, AWS, Node, and React tech stack combinations. However, demanding projects might require additional skills, such as SQL, JavaScript, and Google Cloud Platform proficiencies.

Backend Developers

Backend development is on the rise, thanks to the higher level of flexibility, control, and customization that it offers business-wise.

As per the latest hiring trends in the IT industry, recruiters prefer job candidates that are experienced in Java, Ruby, PHP, Node.js, or C# technologies to build and integrate APIs, servers, and databases. Tech recruiters also often prefer backend developers who can work with SQL, Oracle, MySQL, and MongoDB databases to create, access, update, or even delete data before integrating it with the application’s front end.

Front-end Developers

It is believed that nearly 88% of online users will seldom revisit a website after having a bad experience with it. In fact, 75% of users will switch from one website to another simply because of a poorly designed aesthetic feature. For this reason, current IT hiring trends are seeing a rise in the demand for front-end developers to help businesses create immersive, intuitive, and friendly website application experiences for their customers.

Frontend developers that are highly in demand include talents that are proficient with React, CSS, Angular, HTML, Typescript, and Vue.js technologies. Other skills considered when hiring talents for this field include familiarity with LESS and jQuery coding libraries.

Data Engineers 

Nearly all companies, not only players in the IT industry leverage data insights for one function or another. This data is collected from various sources at a fast pace and stored in organized databases. Security features are also built to safeguard the same from unauthorized access. To achieve these goals, the demand for data engineers dominates IT hiring trends in 2022.

Tech recruiters and employers are looking for data engineers or database-centric professionals that are skilled in Firebase, NoSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, and Redis. These talents usually work with various rising technologies in big data, such as blockchain, IoT, and Enterprise Embedded Systems.

DevOps Professionals

DevOps is arguably one of the most in-demand skills, topping IT hiring trends in 2022 and beyond, with its global market share projected to reach $39.35 billion by the end of 2029, growing at a compound annual rate of 24%. Currently, recruiters are scrambling to hire talents in this field to merge IT operations and software development for automation, repeat production, as well as rapid deployment.

Most companies are looking to hire a DevOps engineer who is proficient in Java, Python, JavaScript, PHP, Pearl, Ruby, and or Golang programming languages. Other skill development gaps that recruiters are looking forward to filling are proficiency in Firebase, NoSQL, and MySQL technologies.

Mobile App Developers

The latest data from GSMA intelligence shows that the number of mobile phone users has increased by a whopping 93 million globally over the past year alone. At the same time, the global app economy is projected to reach $430.9 billion by the end of this year. And since a majority of consumers access the internet via mobile phones, companies are in the race to build user-friendly products and services that can be accessed and utilized via smartphones.

With that in mind, the demand for mobile developers is also dominating the hiring trends in the IT industry this year. Developers that help IT companies handle the increasing demand for mobile app consumption are often experienced in Android and iOS programming languages. These include Java, Kotlin, Swift, and Objective-C.

Features Dominating Hiring Trends in the IT Industry: 2022-2023

From the foregoing tech industry hiring trends, there’s no doubt that recruiting developers is getting highly competitive. This means that recruiters need to employ unique methods and strategies if they are going to attract competitive talent to fill in their vacant IT positions. Here is what is happening to achieve this.

Technical Skills for Programmers Prevail Over Soft Skills

The technical skill gaps in software development projects are alarming and can be evident in the ongoing talent shortage. At the same time, only a handful of organizations have an upskilling program to hone the technical proficiency of their current teams. Moreover, the software industry is highly competitive, hence the need for innovative, futuristic products built with reliable technical skills.

That said, technical proficiency is now a priority in IT hiring trends. The reasoning is that soft skills can be inculcated at the developer onboarding stage or learned swiftly during initial interactions with the talent. On the other hand, technical skills are a must-have from the word go, given that they are the backbone of software development.

Mindsets Prevail the Education in Hiring

Working in modern software development is all about the mindset rather than just educational background alone. Learning institutions teach about concepts and methodologies. It is upon the developer to exhibit a certain mindset and apply the same in solving real-life consumer challenges through innovative software products.

For this reason, a developer’s mindset precedes education in the current IT hiring trends. Employers are recruiters are looking for talents that don’t shy off from embracing an innovative mindset to help them achieve overarching business goals. Other mindsets that are now considered when hiring IT staff include creativity and self-awareness, especially when it comes to cybersecurity risks.

Challenges in How to Find the Right Programmer in Less Than 6 Months

Hiring programmers is proving to be probably the biggest recruitment challenge in the industry. IT companies executives sometimes can hardly fill vacant programmer positions in less than six months, especially if they resort to traditional hiring methods. This translates to unsatisfied customers due to delayed projects, or even worse, abandoned altogether.

Fortunately, businesses have found a way to circumvent this challenge by turning to full-service companies to undertake the hiring process on their behalf. These companies usually have access to larger IT talent pools in overseas job markets and can interview and hire programmers in weeks, not months.

Standing Out From Other Recruiters is a Key Tip for Successful Hiring

Experts believe that there are reasons other than talent shortage that are behind the challenges that companies face when filling vacant IT positions. For instance, job postings that sound odd with unrealistic demands may only attract desperate candidates instead of top-flight candidates for an interview. Failure to include compensation packages can also turn off a job seeker from your ad.

Recruiters are now in the race to stand out from the crowd. Besides offering entirely remote work tools and hybrid options, recruiters are now offering employee benefits and HR services for contracted employees as well. Others are expanding their talent search to less-explored recruitment places, such as social media to attract a new skill.

Expanding Your Job Selection to Find the Best Developers and Contributors 

Most job selections often center around academics, as opposed to hands-on skills and personalities. Current IT hiring trends indicate that recruiters are deviating from traditional job selection techniques to know as much as possible about talents and find the best developers and team members.

To begin with, recruiters build an effective criterion development that ensures only skills and value-matched candidates are shortlisted for the next selection. This is followed by the selection of a prime hiring location, interviews for both soft and technical skills, and then a test task. After that, the candidates are taken through team-building activities to assess their personalities before onboarding.

Lack of Bias is an Important Criterion When Hiring an Employee

Treating all job candidates equally has proven to be a successful strategy in hiring tech talents, and will be employed for the rest of 2022 and beyond. Typically, this means that tech recruiters shouldn’t be biased about a candidate’s personality, beliefs, racial background, or even oratory skills, especially if they are going to fill technical job positions.

Job candidates who often seem shy can prove to be reliable and opinionated after working alongside others. Moreover, recruiting talents with different backgrounds, personalities, and origins creates workplace diversity, which is a recipe for increased productivity.

How to Retain Talent in the Tech Industry 

It’s tiresome and expensive to hire new talent to fill a vacant IT position. That’s why it’s paramount to maintain a majority of your current staff in order not to end up with hard-to-fill vacant spots in the first place. Here are some tips.

Address Job Satisfaction and Burnout Issues

Employees who are unsatisfied with their current job positions will abandon their roles sooner or later to pursue greener pastures in other organizations. With that in mind, make it a habit to continuously improve working conditions to enhance job satisfaction and productivity in the process. This includes addressing burnout issues, incorporating necessary employee benefits, and rewarding hard work regularly.

Develop and Apply New Skills to a Programmer’s Job

All talents love to learn new skills and they will really appreciate it if that is encouraged and practiced at their workplace. Instead of encouraging employees to pursue online courses, employees and HR executives can develop new skills and apply them to technical job positions, such as programming. That way, the talent can learn new skills on the job and will have a reason to continue occupying that position.

Offer a Non-Solicitation Clause 

Another tip for retaining an employee who took you a lot of time and resources to hire is offering a non-soliciting clause at the onboarding stage, especially if you are recruiting them for a long-term project. Technically, this clause limits the employee from soliciting employment or any other revenue-generating activity from your competitors, which can lead to lower turnover and ultimate attrition.

This document is often signed alongside other agreements, such as NDAs, and offers acceptance documents. Although some employers make it optional, it will help if you make the agreement mandatory, renewable after certain periods, say annually.

How We at Newxel, Tame Trends to Hire the Best Tech Talents

Newxel is a full-service company that leverages the upcoming and current hiring trends in IT to help clients across all industries fill vacant positions rapidly, possibly within 3 to 5 weeks of initiating contact. We have adopted three engagement models that address the needs of modern developers, as well as project managers and software companies. These models include dedicated development teams, distributed teams, and global R&D centers.

On top of that Newxel offers turnkey services to help project managers and businesses onboard their talents as seamlessly as possible and get the most out of them. This includes full financial and legal support for setting up R&D centers and offshore, branded working spaces. Other services include HR and IT support contact throughout the cooperation.

Book a call with Newxel experts if you need professional assistance

adopting the latest hiring trends in tech. 

Sum Up

The current IT job market requires tech recruiters to shift their mindset, methods, and strategies, especially if they are going to be successful at finding the right candidates to fill vacant positions. This means embracing all these tech industry hiring trends, and more that will emerge in the coming months. For companies that want to bypass hiring bottlenecks and access global job markets, contact us today and learn more about our engagement models.

FAQ

Contact Us

Error: Contact form not found.