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What Are Today's Most Difficult IT Hires? (cio.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the recruiters-most-wanted dept.

Slashdot reader snydeq shared an article from CIO: The IT talent gap is driving up demand for skilled IT pros, but for certain roles and skillsets, finding -- and signing -- the right candidate can feel a bit like trying to capture a unicorn... AI and data science jobs are at the top of the list, in part because they're relatively young technologies, and they're being introduced in all sorts of companies going through their digital transformation. At the same time, there are some surprises... The experts we talked with name-checked a laundry list of desirable skills and needed experience with emerging areas like cognitive computing, machine learning, data analytics, IoT and blockchain. But the true unicorns are candidates who can not only deepen their bench of tech skills but keep an eye on the bottom line.
The article also cites high demand for data privacy experts, penetration testers with a scientific mind-set, and adaptable developers (including DevOps engineers), as well as experts in robotics and cryptology. But everyone's experiencing the job market differently, so the original submission ends with a question for Slashdot readers.

"What hires are you having the most difficulty making these days?"

6 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. Hard to hire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    We're having difficulty finding someone who is a blockchain expert with 5+ years in Lightning Network experience.

    HR won't let us hire anyone with less, and demands at least 2/3s of new Engineering hires be non-white non-male.

  2. From most of the jobs I see posted online by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The most difficult IT hires are the dev/admin/whatever with 20 years of experience willing to work for minimum wage. Woe is the poor cheap-ass employer.

    1. Re:From most of the jobs I see posted online by scsirob · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This. Plus the ones that have 20 years of experience with a technology that didn't exist 10 years ago.

      --
      To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
    2. Re:From most of the jobs I see posted online by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Those aren't real ads. After running the ad and concluding that no candidates came forward, the company is free to hire an H1B to displace an American worker. They don't actually expect anyone to answer the ad, it's just in fulfillment of a legal requirement.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    3. Re:From most of the jobs I see posted online by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      And to try and get them, they ask idiot "tech" recruiters who go after that "smell of success" by vgrepping for buzzwords.

      Though there is some interesting (Chinese sense) variation:

      penetration testers with a scientific mind-set,

      Too many cowboys in "cyber security". Makes sense because all of "cyber security" consists of s'kiddies calling themselves "hackers" and bicker among themselves about hat colour. Finally figuring out this particular cottage industry sells mostly imperial textiles, eh.

      and adaptable developers (including DevOps engineers),

      I have sysadmin AND development experience, and that's always been a point against me, even before devops became a thing. Just like "can do" and "I don't know but I'll figure it out" attitude (a rather essential trait for generalist sysadmins) gets mentally filed under "attitude", not "can do". Thanks, HR drones.

      Bitter, me? You bet, with reason well beyond being an occupational hazard for this line of work. But that isn't the point.

      I say people selection is the most important thing, and so far "we" are doing poorly. Executives watching their people burn out is but a high point in this particular traveling crap shoot and shit show.

  3. Young technologies...riiiight... by bradley13 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "AI and data science jobs are at the top of the list, in part because they're relatively young technologies"

    Nothing particularly new in any of the fields mentioned. Specific frameworks in use are different now than they were 5, 10 or 20 years ago. However, speaking as someone who has been in IT for somewhere between 30 and 40 years, there's really not a lot that's fundamentally new. Mostly, we have added more turtles. What I do see is that each new generation re-invents old ideas and slaps new labels on them. Often, they even think the ideas are new, until some old grouch like me comes along and rains on their parade.

    The last real sea change was the spread of the Internet in the 1990s - enabling worldwide networking (and worldwide attacks). The actual vulnerabilities being exploited, however, are old-hat. The top security risk today's web applications is injection? This has not changed in 20 years, which ought to be embarrassing for the entire IT profession.

    --
    Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.