Current Trends in IT Recruiting Services

Recruiting IT staff is a costly exercise. When businesses choose the right people for the job, treat them well, these people can produce amazing results that can take a business to a different height. Without the right people, it becomes impossible for a business to achieve their goals. This is true for the whole spectrum of business activity including healthcare, legal practices, airlines, restaurants and also Information Technology. A poor choice in IT recruitment can prove to be expensive for the whole business. Though companies follow different strategies for their IT recruitment, it is possible to find out some of the trends that are currently affecting IT recruiting services.

Increased demand for Big Data 

Companies are quick to adopt new technologies and invest in cloud, mobile and social networking platforms. But the challenge now is that businesses have an overwhelming amount of valuable data and need a new breed of data scientist who can use this data to provide better customer relationships and develop products and services based on customers’ behavior. Businesses are having a hard time finding IT professionals with Big Data skills. According to John Michelsen, CTO of software management company CA Technologies “these are highly specialized skills”. The need for IT professionals with Big Data skills is mounting but getting access to the right candidates can be difficult.

Recruiting becomes more social

A resume can no longer be relied on as the main focus in helping a candidate getting a job. A resume shows a summary of a candidate’s skill and experience, but what about his online presence? An employer is interested in knowing the social presence of its prospective employees. A candidate’s social presence can both be a pro or a con in his search for a job. It is the responsibility of a candidate to use social networking platforms responsibly and be careful about his updates, comments and photos. Try to remember that a prospective employer builds his opinion depending on a candidate’s social feeds.

Social networking to retain talent

Not only for recruiting talent, businesses are using social networking platforms to engage talent, retain them, nurture them and finally enhance their loyalty to a business. 2014 is expected to be the year when employers will tap the social and behavioral data of their employees to motivate them, understand their demand and lengthen their tenure with an organization.

The roles of CIOs have evolved

CIOs are no longer confined to their back office. Their roles have evolved too. They have migrated from back office to the board room making their roles more prominent and visible. In the coming years, CIOs need to take a prominent role in some of the latest IT trends including mobile, cloud and data. The role of CIOs is evolving and also their importance within an organization.

Putting greater emphasis on attitude

Businesses are giving more emphasis to attitude even more so than qualification and experience. Of course there are certain roles that need special training and substantial previous experience, but there may be a trade-off against the ideal attitude.

Recruiters are the best people to understand the attitude of a candidate and predict whether or not the candidate is fit for a particular role and corporate environment.

Are Interpersonal Important for IT Professionals? | COA IT Solutions

Are Interpersonal Important for IT Professionals? | COA IT Solutions

5 Hot IT Skills for 2014 | COA IT Solutions

5 Hot IT Skills for 2014 | COA IT Solutions

According to Computerworld’s annual forecast survey, 32% of companies are expected to increase their IT head count in 2014, compared with 33% in 2013. Although the demand for IT professionals remains more or less steady, there will be a change in the demand for different skill sets. Here’s a look at the 5 top IT skills that are expected to be in demand in 2014:

SmartSourcing - The New Outsourcing Model

Information Technology continues to play a crucial role in business, compelling business leaders to consider developing their own in-house IT teams. They are increasingly looking for ways to maintain a team of their own IT professionals while reducing the in-house burden of supporting this talent. Reducing in-house support is often termed as “outsourcing”.  Over the time, outsourcing has changed and there have evolved many new models of outsourcing. SmartSourcing is one such form of outsourcing and is perhaps the best of all.

Why use this Business Model?

Finding and retaining IT workers has reached a crisis stage. Microsoft has already signalled their lack of suitable candidates for IT roles. IBM joined the queue and said they were experiencing “one of the largest skill gaps in history”. What’s the solution to this problem? The obvious answer is SmartSourcing. Companies can complete their IT projects in countries like India that has a high concentration of IT professionals. The term “outsourcing” can be scary for many businesses, but SmartSourcing is entirely different.

Anatomy of the New Business Model

In a typical outsourcing model, a business owner usually has no control over his outsourced project.  He cannot control the staff that works on his project, he cannot interact with them and in most cases, business owners do not even know the name, qualification and experience of the IT staff working on his project. It is likely that he will worry about the future of his project and will not be comfortable having unknown people working on his important project.

SmartSourcing is the Best Alternative. Here’s how it works: 

The primary difference between this process and outsourcing is that with Smart Sourcing business owners have total control over their project and their staff. Business owners can select and interview a candidate before hiring him to work on his project. He can have unrestricted and uninterrupted access to his staff and can manage all their assignments, projects, supervision and deadlines, though he does not need to bother about their payroll management and other HR tasks. A business owner pays a flat hourly rate that covers all the needs of his virtual staff including: IT infrastructure, hardware and software, in-house HR services, technical support and also a phone system with a US phone number.

 SmartSourcing resources work as an extension of a business’s regular workforce
 Business owners make the hiring and firing decisions
 Business owners assign the work and their resources are dedicated to one particular project (or to the business owner)
 Resources can work the same business hours as the business
 Business owners assigns, reviews, and sets deadlines for all projects
 The staff reports to the stakeholder – this may be the owner, manager, or even a SmartSourcing  project manager that acts as liaison between the local business and the remote staff in India
 Owners can collaborate with their staff via phone, IM, email, Skype or video conference whenever needed