Struggling to Find Talent? You’re Not Alone

How to respond to the tech talent shortage

Jan. 31, 2022 | By Laura Fritz and Lauren Kolodrubetz

Nearly 6 million tech jobs have been posted online in the last 12 months. That number is 6.5 times greater than the number of workers available to fill those roles. Hiring managers across the board are struggling to fill positions and retain employees. So, what can C-level executives do to bridge the skill gap while building a more inclusive and diverse workforce? How can they implement programs that attract, develop and retain talent?

Hire early talent. “Early talent” represents individuals with less than three years of relevant work experience. Talent with little practice but the aptitude and drive to learn will positively impact your team as complex technology initiatives remain prioritized.

4 Ways to Integrate Early Talent into Your Organization

Many technology managers are hesitant to consider a program that involves onboarding and developing new talent with minimal experience. With tight deadlines and limited manager bandwidth, their concern is that hiring early talent may not result in productivity gains and retention. But integrating early talent has more upsides than you may think. The benefits? Innovation, creativity, diversity and a drive for excellence. Here are four ways to initiate an early talent program:

1. Label away from the term “junior talent”

• Junior talent implies that the individuals need to work their way up to a higher level before assisting with advanced technology initiatives.
• Examples of early talent include college grads and nontraditional technical boot camp graduates.
• Hiring talent that enters the IT field from nontraditional pathways is an excellent way to increase diversity within your organization and improve access and equity in an industry where women and people of color are widely underrepresented.

What our experts are saying:

We have stopped using the term junior talent. It led to a mindset that the new talent wouldn’t be as mature, proactive or self-motivated when they joined a project.

2. Provide structure by assigning specific tasks

There are benefits beyond cost savings when you offload tasks from more experienced talent to early talent. When more experienced talent focuses on tasks requiring advanced skill sets, they find their work more meaningful. Early talent also finds their work worthwhile because they’re doing something uniquely skilled for them.

• Assign small tasks associated with significant initiatives.
• Leverage assessment tools and other measurement opportunities to identify areas of focus/tasks to assign that align with their strengths.
• Look for opportunities to peel off an activity that more experienced talent is currently doing that weighs them down. New talent is more willing to step in and take on these tasks because they want to learn.

What our experts are saying:

For a project that involved migrating from SQL Server to Snowflake, we had our early talent take on tasks that involved validation. This worked out to be beneficial for everyone as the early talent was able to learn technology while we as an organization were happy to see our ROI. It saved us a lot of time and cost.

What our experts are saying:

[Our new talent] has hit the ground running, volunteering to learn new things, doing research and not afraid to pull themselves into meetings with engineers to get in there to learn and get acclimated to their work environment.

3. Build micro-teams

Bringing early talent into your organization allows you to create microteams. You could start with as little as a few new team members. One of our clients, a large healthcare organization, spun up a microteam and saw quick wins from collaboration because they had the desire and aptitude for learning quickly and providing results. When building microteams:

• Infuse technical mentorship into the team because it takes the pressure off the managers. Technical mentorship comes from more experienced team members on the project.
• Provide informal learning sessions with a focus on business and soft skills.
• Implement reverse mentorship so early talent can bring ideas to more experienced talent, and both parties can collaborate when problem-solving.

4. Connect their work back to the big picture

Those kick-starting or reinventing their career are usually purpose-driven. Early talent is more likely to leave the organization if they feel undervalued or don’t see how they contribute to the bigger picture. Create monthly venues to hear from tenured leaders on the big picture and how their work connects to critical technology and business initiatives.

• Capture metrics and share them with new talent. This is also helpful for tenured leadership to show cost savings.
• Implement regular recognition. Whether it’s rewards or verbal acknowledgment, everyone works harder when their work is recognized. For example, TEKsystems uses Microsoft Teams channels for consistent communication and recognition.

What our experts are saying:

After looking at survey data that showed new talent didn’t see connection points to their work and the larger initiatives they were impacting, we increased communication efforts to include team huddles and more frequent stand-ups with leadership enabling their career growth path.

Incorporating early talent is a critical element in an overall recruiting strategy to address technology talent shortages. There is also an opportunity to build a more diverse workforce. Gen Z is the most diverse generation yet, and by 2025, they will make up 27% of the workforce.

While the business case for investing in early talent grows, experimentation and the opportunity to apply emerging best practices and lessons learned will grow, too. Integrating early talent may be easier than you think with surprising productivity results in the first few months with a disciplined approach.