The terms IoT, smart technology and connectivity have become the big buzzwords of 2016 – and rightly so: By 2020, it’s expected that there will be 21 billion connected devices, and over half of businesses will incorporate some element of IoT.
But, with this explosion of new technology has come a wave of misunderstanding when it comes to recruitment. It simply isn’t as straightforward as referring to IoT as a required skill or sector.
IoT and smart technology permeate so many different roles and require a vast range of skills. The immediate challenge, as many HR professionals, line managers and recruiters are finding, is that a deep knowledge of tech is required in order to view the current landscape of skills and develop those competencies for future requirements.
Success in digital transformation requires the input from several disciplines, including but not limited to: software development, cloud-based technologies, hardware design, firmware development, infrastructure, testing, security, networking, operations and analytics. It pretty much depends on expertise from every tech brain out there at different points of the business lifecycle.
When recruiting for the future, in a connected world, a holistic view of the projects is essential. It’s all too easy to throw a wish-list of tech requirements into a job description but you’ll struggle to find that elusive individual who can do it all. Employing tomorrow’s talent needs a different approach. It’s important to look at building smart teams. Even if you’re only looking for one individual, consider how that person can strengthen your existing pool of talent to make you even more competitive.
Yes, it’s more difficult and requires more effort and a greater understanding of IT skills to recruit this way, but if we are really experiencing a serious talent shortage as many articles claim, we need to look at what can be done to remedy this.
Is it just a case of not being able to find what we’re asking for because we’re looking for the wrong thing? Does the industry just need to get better at adapting and developing the wealth of existing skills instead?
We see hundreds of highly skilled candidates and contractors in our recruitment division, and whilst it would be easy to match a few keywords against their CVs to see if they match the complex requirements of our future-focused clients, it just wouldn’t work. You have to be more technologically savvy that that.
Similarly, in PRO, our RPO division, our consultants are now taking a more active role in helping HR and CIOs break down the skills required for smart city projects, connectivity projects and smart technology requirements, to be able to create recruitment roadmaps that help to attract and build seriously smart teams.
This has to be the new way of recruiting in this new space. The old approaches are now obsolete.